Archive for the 'Branding' Category

Authentically made in China and painted with lead……

Published by Ben Kepes on August 17, 2007 in Branding, Business, Design, Economic Development, Manufacturing, My businesses, New Zealand and Strategy. 4 Comments

Will has a good post over here giving some sag advice to startups to be authentic. It’s a valid viewpoint, especially given the recent cases involving dodgy lead paint, poisonous toothpaste and killer dog food.

Recently we have seen a number of products come to market which leverage off some sort of pseudo authentic platform. Here in New Zealand, and in my industry, we see it in the Asian manufactured outdoor products that keep harping on about clean green/made OF New Zealand/born of the mountains etc etc.

Sorry to get all heated up about this but what the hell does it mean. A product that is manufactured in China, of fabric made in Korea, then shipped to Europe packaged in bleach filled packaging that is printed with chlorine inks in a million places saying “Made of New Zealand”.

Now don’t get me wrong - I have no problem with (for example) Icebreaker moving production to China. It’s a move that (if one buys into their rationale) they had to make to ensure qualitative and quantitative performance for their brand. The move I have no problem with, what I do have a problem with (and I’m not going to enter the debate whether or not Icebreaker are guilty of this) is covering up the offshore move with awful platitudes about shiny happy Asian labour and the fact that their former manufacturing workers have miraculously become graphic/product/web designers.

So, to get back to what Wil says, be honest, be open and most of all ensure that your product, your mesage and your people are authentic.

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SAP SaaS, or SaaS SAP, or something

Published by Ben Kepes on August 8, 2007 in Branding, Business, Design, Efficiency, IT, SaaS, Strategy and Web x.0. 4 Comments

News that SAP will offer a SaaS product. They’re intending to service around 100 000 punters, while not cannibalising their existing revenue streams.

The unreasonable men pour scorn on the idea over here, saying that “incumbents don’t like disruption because its almost certainly an extraneous force impacting on how they do business” and that it is thus oxymoronic to have incumbents embracing a disruptive technology.

Let’s get one thing straight - I don’t think SAP will succeed with a SaaS strategy long term, however I disagree with the unreasonable men in that I think there are some short/medium term legs on this product. SAP has sufficient momentum that they should be able to achieve a reasonably degree of traction based on a dual platform of a know brand and a desire held by enterprise to move to SOA for that product.

It’s like MYOB coming out with an SME accounting package delivered by SaaS. While it may not be viable long term (and even that I wouldn’t be 100% sure about) they would get immediate traction from substitution transfers between their client/server product and their SaaS offering.

Yet another reason that Xero had to go the IPO route to scale rapidly in order to fight of other challengers.

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So what actually is Web 2.0? And where does SaaS fall into that? Where is the intersect?

Published by Ben Kepes on July 19, 2007 in Branding, Business, Design, IT, New business, SaaS, Society and Strategy. 7 Comments

Well, according to Tim O’Reilly, Web 2.0 is when the web shows the following traits;

  • the web as a platform
  • data as the driving force
  • network effects created by an architecture of participation
  • innovation in assembly of systems and sites composed by pulling together features from distributed, independent developers (a kind of “open source” development)
  • lightweight business models enabled by content and service syndication
  • the end of the software adoption cycle (”the perpetual beta”)
  • software above the level of a single device, leveraging the power of the “Long Tail”
  • ease of picking-up by early adopters

SaaS, according to Wikipedia, has the following attributes;

  • network-based access to, and management of, commercially available (i.e., not custom) software
  • activities that are managed from central locations rather than at each customer’s site, enabling customers to access applications remotely via the Web
  • application delivery that typically is closer to a one-to-many model (single instance, multi-tenant architecture) than to a one-to-one model, including architecture, pricing, partnering, and management characteristics
  • centralised feature updating, which obviates the need for downloadable patches and upgrades.

Clearly there is significant overlap between web 2.0 attributes and those of SaaS. However my contention is that real value plays will be found by creating enterprise in the space where the two connect.

I believe the intersect of value occurs in the architecture of participation/one-t0-many space. To explain what I mean I’m going to go out on a limb and look at the TradeMe model. While TradeMe is an outstanding success, I believe it is not an example of optimal Web 2.0/SaaS intersection.

TradeMe has a huge networked community that takes part in activities hosted on the TM site, but UI’d in such a way as to appear a offshoot of TM’s core business. If I were designing a new auction site in New Zealand (and obviously given incumbency I’d be a fool to do so), I’d be looking to have network participation front and centre. As an example we’ll look at hypothetical Ma and Pa Jones who collect tea cosies. While Ma and Pa spend a significant amount of time on TM searching for all that is newly available in the tea cosy line, when they want to get down to the serious business of discussing their tea cosy fascination, their forum is elsewhere. Imagine a scenario where TM was a portal and an aggregator for Ma and Pa Jones’ interests. Not only could they buy and sell tea cosies there but they could virtually meet other tea cosy enthusiasts, discuss all that is new and form strong and specific networks, all within the TM framework.

Now I’m not architecture/UI guru so I’m yet to work out how this would all work and look but hopefully people see where I’m coming from with the analogy.

Successful plays from now on will be made by having both a breadth of content, and a depth of content. They’ll succeed by aggregating the attention (and spend!) of individuals and by creating compelling and value added networks from those individuals.

It’s a space that is very young and one which has only been defined conceptually but one which I’m keen to explore and help organisations develop. It’s the way to build exponentially increasingly valuable selling propositions and garner the potential of the intersect of technology, buying habits and societal values.

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