Mind the Gap

Shiny Kit Syndrome - an SAS term for a phenomenon that has become all too familiar to me in my position at the intersection of communications and technology-based service lines.

The makers of shiny new kit tend to care more that there is a gap in the market than if there is a market in the gap. Why? Because in a sense the real market they are in is the one for gaps in the market.

That other market, the one with actual customers with real needs that have to be engaged with, often represents more of a threat than an opportunity for their business model (or at least its market value).

The bubble may have popped, but acknowledged occupation of a market gap still often counts for more than actual sales, especially if the would-be occupiers can insinuate that there is an underlying dynamic process pushing apparently stable and profitable companies in the same sector towards a life and death struggle in the very near future. "They just dont get it" etc.

Communications companies partner up with the purveyors of shiny new kit at their own peril.

The most successful interactions between client service and technical functionality that I have personally been involved with, were those where the strategy was formulated (and re-formulated) by the people closest to the end customer, with an emphasis on flexible adaptation to different needs. Needless to say, the least successful ones originated in precisely the opposite circumstances.