If your competition is resting on their laurels and offering a mediocre product, you can steal market share by offering a faster, easier to use, and friendlier competitor. But what if your competition has a decent product and their users aren’t really dissatisfied? To lure customers away and help new users decide which product has more value you can try what the Swiss Army Knife did. Add more features.
Case Study - The Swiss Army Knife
The Swiss Army used German made pocket knives until Karl Elsener, a Swiss native, developed the first Swiss Army Knife in the late 1800’s. Although the knives were well made, simple, and functional, the company had a hard time competing with the Germans and almost went out of business. It wasn’t until the invention of the Officer’s Knife, a pocket knife with 6 practical tools, that the Swiss Army Knife gained a foothold in the knife market. After the US Army considered the knives a must have in WWII, the Swiss Army Knife became a dominant force in the world pocket-knife market. Today, there are more than 100 variations on the Officer’s Knife and the Swiss Army Knife holds a place in the New York Museum of Modern Art’s collection of excellence and design. By creating a feature-rich product and presenting it in an elegant and simple way, the Swiss Army Knife cemented its place in knife history.
If, like Elsner, you face some serious competition with quality products, think about differentiating your product by adding more features while leaving simplicity in tact. Two companies which I believe have done a fantastic job are NetVibes and Apple with OSX.
Netvibes - Netvibes is a great example of a product facing competition with brains and quality products. By constantly adding features and without sacrificing usabilty, Netvibes can go toe to toe with Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo in the personal homepage space. Netvibes also publishes upcoming features to keep their community active and up to date.
OSX - Every year or so, Apple has been adding new features to their operating system, OSX, without compromising its aesthetics or ease of use. The end result is not bloat, but a better product that creates buzz and droves of users more than willing to pay for the improvements.
Good “article”. Next time elaborate more?
I think the final suggestion of OSX is a great one, because it highlights another important thing that Elsener did - and that’s keeping his product simple. His knives didn’t use fancy springs and other gadgets that routinely broke. I doubt that his knives would have achieved the success that they did had they been prone to breakage.
Windows XP is a great example of where Elsener could have failed. Imagine releasing something with as many features as Windows XP and as many bugs without already having market dominance. It just wouldn’t float! A Swiss Army Knife that randomly came open in a soldier’s pocket - or refused to open up so that the soldier could get his rations! Or best, insisted that the user ship the knife to India for authentication and verification that it is indeed genuine!
Wow. I was in the midst this week of writing precisely this kind of article (drawing parallels between swiss army knives, camera phones and multi-purpose software).
You beat me to it. Very freaky.
I agree with your points. There is often room in the market for a simple, integrated solution that combines the necessary parts of what is already there. There are too many “features” out there posing as products.