I have to say that perhaps the wording is less than clear, but I will have to say that I understand the logic behind these questions. It all comes down to priorities and cost benefit from a *business perspective.*
Without something to quantify the desire or need for something it is almost impossible to tell the “nice to haves” from the “need to haves” and then, how important those “nice to haves” are related to cost. We do this in our lives every day. If we did not we would all be eating fillet mignon and lobster tail at every meal. Take for example, anything you buy today. You can buy a vehicle for $X and it has certain features. Basic features such as 3 wheels, a small cabin, 2 seats and an engine that will allow you to travel at 50mph /110kph. This is the product as it exists today. Then the company wants to make changes to the vehicle based on what customers have asked for, but let’s face it, when given a blank check we want everything. So the question becomes, “how important is this to you?” and the answer is sometimes best expressed as the cost you would be willing to pay for that feature. Gone are the days of “This would be a cool feature, therefore it should just be in the product.” We are all in *business* to make money. CA is no different. So, back to our vehicle… through the informal channels we hear, “Customers say our vehicle should be larger.” So the question becomes “which customers”, “how much larger”, and “how much is it worth to them?” So we create a survey using those answers as listed below in this chain: We are considering increasing the passenger carrying capacity of our vehicle to 50 people: (choose one of the following) “Do not change this, if you do your product will no longer suit my needs” “This would not prevent me from buying your product, but it is of no ($0) additional value to me” “This would provide a little (~$100) additional value to me” “This would be of moderate (> $1000) value to me” “This would be of substantial (> $2000) value to me” Considering how each company’s priorities and benefits are different you could see that a bus company might deem this of substantial value, and would be willing to pay additional $$ for it, where a family consumer may say that this change would cause them not to buy the product at all. But, if the bus companies all rated the value at $1000 and the cost to the manufacturer is more than $2000, then there is no market for that product or feature, regardless of how many customers want it. Other simple examples of dollar-weighted importance: Home security – a free mutt from the pound, a $100 deadbolt lockset, a $5,000 security system, or a 24x7 bodyguard? Shipping - a $5.00 7-10 day parcel post, $15.00 2-3 day UPS ground, or $38.00 overnight guaranteed? When I sit with customers I often use this system to define the scope of services. When a customer says, “I want an integrated system that will take feeds from *all* my 3rd party products and put them in one place to be correlated and automatically acted on,” I look at that as the “if I had infinite funds” fantasy. When the rubber meets the road there are always compromises. When there is well defined integration between 80% of the customer’s products and the proposed solution I need to know if any of those remaining 20% are show stoppers, and the customer needs to understand the cost of integrating that last 20% into the system and make a *business decision* based on that cost benefit. So, very often I will ask, “Is that ten-dollars important, or a million-dollars important? Because it is going to cost a lot more than $10 to do what you are asking.” I leave you with one final anecdote. I was planning a fund raiser and I was approached by one of the donors who wanted to insure that his guests would be well attended to, especially when it came to the beer. He informed me that his party would be consuming much and that I should make sure I had enough on hand. I assured him that I would. So, I asked him, “What kind of beer do your friends drink?” “Bud Light,” was the answer. So, I doubled my order of Bud Light and went on my way. The night of the fund raiser came and I noticed that we were running out of Heineken and had not even touched any of the Bud Light, so I approached the donor who had requested the beer earlier and asked him about it. His answer was simple. “If Heineken is the same price, why would they drink Bud Light? They’ll start drinking it when the Heineken is gone.” If they had to pay more for the Heineken they would have chosen the Bud Light as the value of Heineken was $0 to them, but it was a nice to have. To me personally, I only use Bud Light to water my lawn, so I would have paid the additional to get what I wanted, and when it was gone I would stop drinking beer. ;-) Cheers Michael F. Doyle Architect - CA Services From: Miles, Bryan [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, December 28, 2009 11:40 PM To: spectrum Cc: spectrum; spectrum Subject: Re: [spectrum] FW: CA Spectrum OneClick Enhancement Request User Community Survey I have to agree with you too. Sent from my mobile phone Bryan Miles Dir. Networking & Telecom Station Casinos, Inc. 702-495-3323 On Oct 9, 2009, at 5:53 AM, "aamir zahoor" <[email protected]> wrote: I also strongly agree with you. BR, Aamir On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 11:08 PM, Bourlin, Stephen <[email protected]> wrote: Did anyone else get this survey? This has got to be one of the weirdest survey's I've ever taken! There are 41 questions and your choices for the questions are 'I don't want this changed', 'Okay, as long as it's free', ' The change is worth $200 to me', 'The change is worth $1000 to me' & 'The change is worth $2000 to me'. I’m sorry what is CA looking for again? Do they want to know if we would like the changes or how much we’re willing to pay for them? Spectrum is a good product but not if we have to pay extra for simple feature enhancements! Seriously confused, Stephen B. DoIT NMS/NOC -----Original Message----- From: CA Customer Communities Team [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, October 08, 2009 12:42 PM To: Bourlin, Stephen Subject: CA Spectrum OneClick Enhancement Request User Community Survey Hello Stephen Bourlin - You are receiving this message because you are a registered member of the CA Global Community for eHealth and Spectrum. This particular survey is focused on CA Spectrum OneClick. As an advisor to CA, Global Community members have the ability to participate in the Enhancement Request process by reviewing the development requirements and then voting for those that are a priority for your organization. The survey can be reached by clicking on the following link or by cutting and pasting it into your browser URL bar: http://www.casurveys.com/l.dll/JGsB683C8C8lkPD9U12298J.htm Please direct any comments or questions to J.J. Lovett of the CA Customer Programs Team at [email protected]. Thank you. The CA Customer Programs Team * --To unsubscribe from spectrum, send email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe spectrum [email protected] -- Muhammad Aamir Zahoor * --To unsubscribe from spectrum, send email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe spectrum [email protected] * --To unsubscribe from spectrum, send email to [email protected] with the body: unsubscribe spectrum [email protected] _____ The information contained in this electronic transmission (email) is confidential information and may be subject to attorney/client privilege. It is intended only for the use of the individual or entity named above. ANY DISTRIBUTION OR COPYING OF THIS MESSAGE IS PROHIBITED, except by the intended recipient. 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