Let's start with a poll.  To do so, first click on the title above to get to the full version of the blog.  Ok? Now, the poll is over there on the right, under the picture of yours truly.  Please vote, then continue….

Now that you've indicated how you feel about convenience, I'll tell you how we at Forrester feel about it.  Regular readers of the CPS Role Blog in the past will recall that Forrester strongly believes that convenience is the key determinant of a product, service or channel's success.  In fact, we've made convenience a cornerstone of our research for consumer product strategy professionals. 

As part of our ongoing efforts to evangelize the importance of convenience in consumer product strategy, my colleague Ian Fogg and I have just published another report in our Convenience Quotient series.  Code named "The Goldilocks Report," it offers an overview of how consumers are using their mobile phones and why early renditions of feature-laden phones failed.  The report also applies the Convenience Quotient methodology to mobile handsets by defining a comprehensive set of benefits and barriers that exist for mobile handsets, in an effort to help consumer product strategists build "just right" mobile devices.  One of the key takeaways from this report is that product strategy professionals can apply CQ across the product lifecycle: from product planning, to competitive analysis, to product positioning, to post-launch refinements, to product retirement. In each phase, convenience analysis can be used to make smart decisions about product strategy.

While we focused the analysis on the development of a "just right" handset, our framework is not just for CPS professionals at handset manufacturers; rather, any company operating in the mobile ecosystem can benefit from this type of convenience analysis:

  • Product strategists at mobile service providers must constantly refine their product portfolio, and CQ can help ensure that they are offering a  comprehensive range of devices that deliver what consumers want;
  • Product strategists at mobile platform vendors can benchmark their offering's performance in delivering benefits to consumers; and
  • Product strategists at content providers can use CQ to understand which handsets or other devices (laptop, netbook, tablet) are likely to succeed in the future.

 

Moreover, if you take a step back and think broadly about the benefits and barriers of mobile devices, you'll note that many of the categories apply to other portable devices as well (think tablet computers, eReaders, digital cameras and camcorders, and media players). Such is the power of CQ!

Ian and I would like to invite clients to register for a teleconference on Tuesday, May 11 at 11:00am EST to hear more about our application of CQ to the mobile ecosystem, and how it can be applied in other ways as well.  Hope to see you there!