Assignment 15 - Evaluating How Your Customers Evaluate Stuff

For this assignment, I only conducted one interview.  I thought I would go right to the source of my company to ask about the "alternatives" to the evaluation of my proposed entrepreneurial product, the Sustainable Manager.  I interviewed Don Kellogg, the Director of Operations for Scorpio, who makes the decisions on products that the company would subscribe to, such as Procore (Construction Project Management Software), Asana (Schedule/Task Management Software), Bluebeam (PDF Editor), etc.  Here are my findings:

  • Alternative Evaluation
    • What figure matters the most when selecting software for Scorpio to subscribe to?
      • The effectiveness and usability of the software matter the most.  If one type of software is overall a much better product than another (i.e. Bluebeam, when compared to Adobe Acrobat Reader).  The price is definitely a factor, but if we believe the product helps excel the company over another, then it is worth the investment.
      • Also, how bad does the company truly need it?  Will the investment be worthwhile? 
  • How/Where to Buy?
    • In the past, we evaluate the desires and needs of the team, then go after software that tailors to that.  We research and run trials on the different software in contention and select the one that is the easiest or most comprehensive to use.  For instance, Bluebeam contains many functions, such as customized stamping, that Acrobat does not.
    • We tend to finance the subscription costs and bill clients for our use of the software for their projects.  It's a small cost for the project, but when disbursed throughout all projects, it sufficiently covers the cost for our company.
  • Post-Purchase Evaluation
    • The "rightness" of the purchase (in this case, software subscriptions) is defined by the ever-enhancing usability of the software, and the adaptations that move along with the advancements in technology.  Procore, for instance, is constantly developing their software to provide the best customer service and most up-to-date abilities to help us excel with our work, such as budget management, and automatic PDF reading for drawings and specs (recent development that has saved hours towards building submittals, uploading drawings, etc.
Conclusions
  • Based on the alternative evaluation, purchase decision, & post-purchase evaluation, I've determined that focusing on the usability of my product will be key.  I will need to build the software to be easy to navigate and to deliver abilities that other products cannot match (sustainable document management, reformatting, etc.).  I definitely want to key in on the abilities for companies to pay for a one-project function as well as an annual subscription.  For companies the size of Scorpio ($60M in annual revenue), they are only partaking in projects pursuing LEED certification probably once or twice a year.  Most of our projects in this market are renovations that arent seeking LEED certification, therefore, a subscription would not be worthwhile.

Comments

  1. Aaron HuntMarch 14, 2020 at 6:23 PM

    Hello Jason,

    This is a very unique way to go about completing the assignment! I simply chose three products and interviewed potential consumers about which one they would choose. I had not considered interviewing managers about how their customers actually decide on choosing their products. This was a very insightful post as it provides insight into the managerial point of view when it comes to buyer behavior.

    ReplyDelete

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