DDC: Think Solution, Not Product

[Suresh Sambandam]

Hi All,

I came to know that all of you had a great session with Rajendran and others during the induction meeting. I heard that Rajendran talked about the need to have customization skill set in the DDC resources. I thought I will elaborate on that.

To set the context, TEAM is a solution provider company and OrangeScape is a product company. TEAM provides solutions by using one or more products like OrangeScape's DimensioN, QlikView and Navision so that the end customers need is fully realized. So, it is important to conceive clearly the SOLUTION that is needed for YOUR customers. But, often times I happen to hear, that people communicate to the end customers that certain thing is not possible in the product. While it is important to articulate really impossible things to the customers clearly, many a times having a strict feature-to-need mapping approach is the culprit. For example, it would be incorrect say that there is NO WAY to integrate a BARCODE Scanner / Reader by strictly looking at the product feature set. Especially for platform based products like DimensioN the permutation-combination of features to achieving a customer expected functionality is quite large and hence it is important to probe the customer need thoroughly and design a solution that will meet that need.

Note 1: OrangeScape as a product company will always have a product based priorities and that should NOT be confused when you, as a member of DDC, are building solutions. Even within OrangeScape, when we engage in projects, we take a solution approach that works for the customer.

Note 2: Any amount of customization or solution approach thinking is not going to help if the product FITMENT is not evaluated at the time of Sales Process. This mistake can't be correct by the services (DDC) team. This is a different problem that needs to be fixed upfront even before it comes to DDC, hence I am not going to delve into that.

I am consciously opening a pandora's box and expecting to here views from many members of DDC, Rajen and from people at OrangeScape. Let us make this the most happening thread......

Thanks,
Suresh Sambandam
CEO, OrangeScape