The Quality-Ready Advantage

Not long ago one of my marketing students asked “Will it play in Peoria?”  I don’t often hear that question anymore, but every now and then it surfaces.  If you have experience in marketing you may remember the real story behind that famous query.  You see, during the heyday of American vaudeville, the answer to that question determined whether a show would be a hit or a flop. The thinking was that if the show wasn’t acceptable to those in the heart of America’s heartland, there was no chance it would make it anywhere else in the country.  If it didn’t receive a strong approval, one of two things usually happened: The show was rewritten, or it was canceled. Later, the question was adopted by marketers as an informal phrase to stress the importance of making sure that your product or service addresses the needs and desires of your targeted market.

Interesting story Alan - but what’s your point?  Well, we recently asked the question; “Will Seapine play in Munich?”  And the answer is YES!  In fact, Seapine has acquired the business from QA Systems GmbH, a German company that has, over the past five years, distributed Seapine products. The German subsidiary will be called Seapine Software Europe GmbH, and the Munich office will be headed by Robert Riccetti, business development manager for Europe.  Building customer loyalty through quality is a long-term commitment and the establishment of Seapine Software Europe GmbH reaffirms our commitment to provide a quality customer experience for our customer base in Germany.

Trade shows and conferences can be effective vehicles for software vendors to both connect with and listen to customers.  In fact, if you attended the 2008 Game Developers Conference or SD West I hope you visited our booth and gave us the opportunity to meet you.  As we look to the future, our goal is to provide even more opportunities and channels to both listen to and connect with you - our valued software user community.  We’d also like to provide an easy way for you to network with more than just the handful of Seapine employees who attend conferences.

So, in the spirit of both connecting and networking, we invite you to join the new Seapine Software User Group on LinkedIn and/or Facebook. This action represents our initial move to both leverage the emerging power of social networks, and the beginning phase of building a formal Seapine Software User Group. Our user group efforts will start with these social networks, and gradually connect to a formal Seapine Software User Group site that we will host. In the longer term we will also organize traditional face-to-face user group meetings - starting off with regional road shows.

You may have a few questions. For example ***

1. Do I have to join LinkedIn and/or Facebook to be part of this new communications network?

2. If I do join will I get spam?

3. How does this impact the Seapine “User Forums” and support processes on Seapine.com?

The short answers ***

1. Yes. You do need a LinkedIn profile and/or Facebook profile to join a group that is associated with a social networking site.

2. No, spam has not been an issue.

3. No changes concerning customer service and support.  The purpose of these groups is not to work around the Seapine customer service processes or procedures. If you need technical support you should continue the established process which is to email your issue to support@seapine.com or call the support phone number for your region.

Like many of you we’re still learning a few things about social networks - like how to use them for the best possible customer experience.  With that in mind let me share our social networking group charter:

A LinkedIn / Facebook group for the Seapine Software User Group community. The purpose of the Seapine Software User Group is to open and expand conversation among Seapine’s associates and our colleagues using Seapine’s application lifecycle management (ALM) solutions. Opportunities to learn about and share resources related to Seapine applications as well as ALM in general will provide additional professional development benefits.

Following are the links to join LinkedIn and Facebook:

LinkedIn:

http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/57703/093D49724592

Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8301473755

These groups are by invitation only.  So, if you decide to join simply click the link and provide your name, company, and the Seapine applications you are using so that we can verify your Seapine customer status.

I hope to see you in the groups.  If you have questions feel free to send me an email (seea@seapine.com).

In Search of Failure.  That’s the title of chapter seven in Frederick Reichheld’s book “The Loyalty Effect” (©1996).  In that chapter Reichheld points out that an investor who built a stock portfolio out of the companies profiled in the book “In Search of Excellence” (Peters and Waterman ©1982) would have seen their returns trounced by the mediocre performance of the S&P index during the ten year period following the books 1982 publication.  In fact, by time Reichheld’s book came out in 1996 only one-fifth of the original companies profiled as “excellent” had remained excellent.

If success breeds success, how in the “quest for benchmarking best practices” did those companies lose their lofty status?  In Reichheld’s opinion what really helps us to achieve excellence is actually the study of failure.  It’s not exactly in our nature to seek out failure though; in fact, your career is probably linked to success, which means that getting too close to failure may feel threatening.  However, most people will admit that mistakes are often better teachers than success.  In fact, QA experts will attest that when one component fails, it can cast a spotlight on the workings of an entire program.

The analysis of failure is not that easy; but when the analysis leads to sustained quality the pay-off is big.  In the Profit Impact of Marketing Strategy (PIMS) project the researchers (Buzzell and Gale, 1987) reported that the profitability of a business is affected by 37 basic factors. Based on analysis of information available in the PIMS database, Buzzell and Gale hypothesized that in the long run, the most important single factor affecting a business unit’s performance is the quality of its products and services relative to those of competitors.

The trick is to set up a process and system to track, test, analyze, and address potential issues, defects or problems before they negatively impact profitability.  In many ways quality and value are interlocked.  Customer value proposition models are based on the idea that customers with different needs require different experiences and different value propositions if the relationship between the customer and company is to be mutually beneficial.  And no value proposition will succeed in delivering profit to a company unless the customer perceives the product (or service) as meeting their needs best.

Recently we released the early results from our Seapine Software Quality-Ready Assessment, a survey that evaluates key indicators of quality within software development organizations. After collecting data from over 300 respondents, the results indicate that the top two factors driving development organizations to focus on ALM solutions are:

• The need to quickly respond to customer requests and requirements
• The need to reduce risk by preventing poor quality from impacting customer satisfaction

Software quality and reliability are lifelines to customer loyalty, and profitability.  Yet development organizations still struggle to achieve quality and deliver their products on time and within budget.  Survey results indicate that more than one third of companies completed their application development on time and within budget less than 75 percent of the time.  The survey also indicates that 70 percent of the companies are undertaking one of following actions to improve the quality of their software development:

• Clearly defining quality metrics
• Undertaking pilot projects or proof-of-concepts pertaining to software development quality
• Seeking executive sponsorship for software development quality improvements

The respondents represent companies of every size. Sixty-nine percent are small companies (less than $250M in revenue), 22 percent are mid-size ($250M - $2.5B), and nine percent are large. The leading industries represented include high tech (32%), financial services (16%), consumer products/retail (9%), and telecommunications (8%).

Software development and QA organizations can complete the assessment on-line (www.seapine.com/qualityready).  Once the initial benchmarking data has been tabulated I’ll let you know how various organizations (by revenue and industry) compare.

In the early 80’s I was a marketing director for a small oil field service company located in Abilene, Texas.  It was electrifying to be on location when a wildcatter hit oil.  If investors happen to on-site during the discovery they would literally break out the champagne bottles.  If the driller hit water and the well started pumping mud the show was over.  The only thing that can be done at that point is to plug the well, tear down the drilling rig, and move to the next location.  It seems fitting that during that early 80’s oil boom the developers at Texas Instruments would borrow oil field jargon to describe one of their error messages:

“SHUT ’ER DOWN, CLANCY, SHE’S PUMPING MUD”

Of course when a phrase of that nature is associated with code instead of oil the reaction – and results, can be devastating.  High-risk is a given when it comes to oil exploration.  In fact, only about 40% of wells recently drilled find commercial hydrocarbons.  When it comes to software though, customers expect the applications they buy to work 100 percent of the time.  Software defects can cause serious business consequences that have the power to ruin a company’s reputation, and possibly shut’er down forever.

Zero defects sounds unachievable, particularly during a time when products are so complex.  After all, aren’t software bugs just part of the feature set?  In truth, research shows that given the choice of higher cost, longer delivery time or poorer quality, customers will choose to protect quality.  That means development and QA organizations need to think like customers, and put aggressive quality programs in place to remain true to their customer-focused objectives.  A sustainable competitive advantage emerges when quality-centric business practices are put into place.  A focused discipline on service, quality, and reliability has proven to be a timeless strategy that both engages the customer, and builds loyalty.

Pluto got bumped from the line-up.  According to a committee of scientists the small solar-system body failed to meet planet-standards, so they downgraded the former planet to an asteroid.  Plutoed; chosen as the 2006 Word of the Year by the American Dialect Society, it means to demote or devalue someone or something – to be unceremoniously relegated to a lower position.

In a down economy it might be tempting to pluto your quality improvement initiatives.  When economic indicators are pointing towards a rough landing the “cost of quality” may seem out of orbit.  Anyways, perhaps your customers really won’t notice if quality is dialed down a notch or two.  In fact, generally speaking satisfaction with a company’s products and services is built by repeated customer experiences. So, unless the experiences are below or above expectations, it takes a while for an attitude shift to take place.  Like Pluto’s orbit around the sun – you’d have plenty of time to recover satisfaction, and shift any negative loyalty inertia that might develop - right?  Don’t count on it; because the “cost of poor quality” can strike at the speed of light.  How?  Thanks to user-generated reviews the business solar-system is much smaller now.  Research shows that your customers are increasingly learning about your brand from individuals outside of your control.  And to that point a recent article in marketing news stated that 76% of people who are shopping check out user-generated reviews and that 16% of those reviews were negative.

Bottom line; keep your quality initiatives in placed or you’ll be taking yourself out of alignment with your customers’ needs and expectations - because your customers care about quality.  Your customers care about software quality because your code is often critical to their business.  Your software not only impacts their customer’s experiences, but also puts their brand reputation on the line.  Whether you’re writing code or responsible for QA; your good name is also on the line.  So, don’t pluto quality.