Introduction
The modern market is full of surprises that if left to the perceived strong players and watched from a distance by junior players, would lead to monopoly and subsequently compromise product and service quality. In the past, fierce competition was a thing for big companies scrambling for a sizeable market share. It mainly involved product oriented companies. Service industry operated like a shaved sheep that has nothing to worry of when approaching a sliding ground. Today, the wave of quality products and services continue to awaken these companies that have so long enjoyed the royal nap for many years.
Process Design
According to Reinertsen (2009), every product or service is conceived through a successful process design. Process design can be defined as a combination of necessary inputs and strategy to come up with a competitive and attractive product or service. For many years, BBC has dominated the communication niche with variety of programs, investigative pieces as well as informative and educative news items. Technological advancement continue to shake media houses vigorously and any player in this sector who does not have a grip of the surface, faces eminent exit.
Declining sales of print media was more than enough signal that the world was headed for dedicated online platform. BBC has kept up the heat of competition and in 2014 introduced one of its kind product-iPlayer. The product is designed in a way to meet the dynamisms of the ever changing mobile technology and android world. It enables users to listen and watch what they specifically want, wherever they are, on their portable devices. There is no more hurry to get home on time to catch some of your favourite programs.
Despite the noticeable success of iPlayer since its launch, a lot needs to be done to sustain this product and command the ever growing youth population. A re-design of iPlayer to iPlayer plus will add a number of features to the product line to enable it compete favourably for viewership along the dominant giants such as YouTube among others.
Some of the key features to be added include: time-it-save it button, download it, favourite, and comment box. The time-it-save button will enable users to schedule a download of a live program and watch it later when they finally get the opportunity. It is intended as loyalty reward mechanism to show the users that they do matter and they can get quality HD videos with non-embedded promotional videos.
Again, it will enable users to download past entertaining items with ease. Introduction of exclusive iPlayer plus gallery will give viewers a more than one opportunity to enjoy other programs that they may have missed in the course of performing their job duties or home responsibilities. The new download button will be designed in a way to quarantine malware detected in the storage destination. Users will not be required to install other third party software to keep their devices free from malware.
Inclusive of the new design will be a favourite button that will automatically remind users of availability of new video clip if they have already favorited the program. Viewers will not have to check from time to time to find out if something new is in the store for them. All they need to do is to hit the favourite button and all alerts will be communicated in real-time. Also, the final feature will be the newly customize text box for further suggestion on what the company can air or programs that needs to be discontinued or deleted.
Importance of Process Design
Process design helps to keep the key players or developers on the right delivery path. It sets up step by step process that should be followed to realize ultimate goal with less struggle. Proper planning ensures the set time limit is observed and necessary control measures are put in place to remedy and deviation from the laid out plan.
It also permits value addition in each step. The technical team will be in apposition to add value to individual processes so as to come with the finest product that will not only appeal to the consumers, but also exceeds their expectation (Barners 2008). Again, it eliminates any form of opacity across the entire project. Those included in the product development plan are aware of other members activities and can offer valuable support should they notice something unusual.
A Shift of Paradigm or Obligatory of the International Media Giant
As it clocks each day, a whole pack of generation is at the top of a cliff awaiting extinction. There are numerous concerns of the next generation- generation X and Y as the baby boomers calls it a day in various spectra of life. The fear of every company out there is to learn how to associate, integrate and establish a good working relationship with this most feared generation. According to McGregor theory of X and Y, this generation is more concerned with what they can receive and not what they can possibly give out as their parents did.
Instant gratification is an indispensable characteristics that any product or service provider must factor in as it focuses to serve generation X and Y. This explains why BBC has continually introduced a number of channels such as chanel 3 which was designed to meet the demands of its youthful audience before its fan base started to decline as technology continue to change. The generation XY adopted most viable news options that they can enjoy regardless of their location. Social media became their first stop-shop for all their news and entertainment needs.
Channel 3 became slightly unattractive something that prompted the company to follow the youths claiming s a mandatory obligation to keep them informed and entertained through its new product iPlayer. The new product design has the instant gratification features that will make the product appealing to the youth. This will earn the company the much-needed viewership as it continue to increase its market share and rethink of its growth prospect. In the media industry, nothing sells more than commanding the highest viewership. iplayer plus is specifically designed to deliver this goal. The top management is assured of increased market share and growth with the new improved product line that has addressed a number of weakness that poked holes letting competitor ride without a stab at the back.
iPlayer just like any product can fall in any of the four main categories outlined by Bruce Henderson in his Boston consulting group matrix theory. The four product categories are: star, cash cow, Dogs, and Problem child. An examination of BBC products reveals that its main product, the BBC channel is best listed as Cash cow because of its expansive market share with relatively low growth since the inception of social media as an alternative channel.
BBC channel one, the mother channel once was a star product and enjoyed a sizeable market share and high growth rate. Overtime, with the dynamic nature of consumers (Annacchino 2007), unprecedented slow growth ensued and thus creating the need to develop a new product line that will capture the once loyal consumers. This led to introduction of a digital platform to capture perceived run-away audience.
Synonymous with new product trends, iplayer is best labelled as problem child product due to low share and a perceived high growth potential. In order to turn it to a star product to help the company reaffirm their market share and record high growth once again, it must undergo technological surgery to activate most sought features that will sell among consumers (Mahadiven 2010). This is the only way to climb to the top and regain lost glory in the competitive environment.
Process Design Diagram for iPlayer Plus
Once, the selection and training have been done, the candidates will then move to product improvement or incubation centre to materialize the plan. It is at this stage that important features will be added to the product to enable it conform to the current market demand. Upon completion and feeling satisfied with the product, the product incubation/ improvement centre will then present it to quality assurance department for further testing to ensure it meets all the required quality standards before handing it over to the marketing department to present it to the consumers.
An Analysis of the Impact of Product Performance Objective
Effective advertisement will position iplayer plus in the heart of consumers. More people will want to associate themselves with the BBC new improved product line. Influx of people to the new channel will definitely cause a wave of discomfort with the company competitors. Competition will be rife and the BBC will need to maintain an interactive viewer’s platform to keep their audience and continue looking for more entertaining and contemporary programs that will attract loyalty in equal measures.
Viewers’ satisfaction always translate to the company intangible assets. Various group of people and companies that would like to market their products will always want BBC to help them realize their goals. More adverts will translate to increased revenue for the company. This will ultimately improve its growth prospect and place it in a better position to battle the market leadership with other channels such as CNN and Al Jazeera alike.
A successful iPlayer plus brand will also require the company to continuously improve on service delivery and make the product attractive each and every time. Such actions will also require the company to commit more resources to facilitate expansion of the channel to offer variety of programs that people of various interest can always find something catchy.
Annacchino (2007) posits that, a single breakthrough for a company in penetrating a competitive market will raise the bar so high that it will require additional labour inputs to come up with other innovative products and services to complement core products. Keeping up with the current market expectation will force the company to employ additional staff that will oversee other successful company brands to improve and conform to the market standards.
Increase in the number of employees may also force the company to expand its operations space to accommodate various departments that will help in spearheading the company digital goals and strategies. Technology is ever changing and a process design that works presently may soon find its way out of the market. However, it is always a good practice for businesses to get the most out of its internally designed processes that they have an absolute control over.
BBC has great interest in serving entire population. The Primary objective to take quality products to customers which led to the inception of iPlayer. More work will be left for digital marketing team to publicize most of the company’s product line and make them attractive on the long run before another brand new product is released to the market. A sustainability approach to process design process will ensure the company do not exhaust all its old product line that will render it redundant and insensitive to quality service delivery.
Bibliography
Annacchino, M. A. 2007. The pursuit of new product development the business development process. Amsterdam: Butterworth-Heinemann.
Barnes, D. 2008. Operations management: An international perspective. London: Thomson.
Mahadevan, B. 2010. Operations management: Theory and practice. Upper Saddle River: Pearson.
Reinertsen, D. G. 2009. The principles of product development flow: Second generation lean product development. Redondo Beach, CA: Celeritas.
