How to design a product from the interests of stakeholders?

Recently, I am making a trading platform for tourism products. In fact, if I refer to travel websites such as Tuniu, Ctrip and Qunar, I can submit a product design plan soon, and the products I make will not be unreliable, but I am thinking about another question: If I really want to design a product from scratch, what will I do? I have read many articles about products, many of which are about user research and data analysis, but I want to think about it from another angle.

Note in advance: Maybe according to this idea, the final conclusion is not a great conclusion. Maybe you are used to it on many mature platforms, but I just want to think about it from another angle, so please go out and turn right.

The following are some attempts I have made and some issues that need to be considered in the product design process:

First: think clearly about a product, what is the significance of its existence?

The word meaning can be understood in many ways, such as purpose, such as vision. As Alibaba's vision is clearly written: "Let there be no hard business in the world". This is very important, because this vision will give you a clear judgment standard when making product decisions.

Second: Who are the stakeholders of this product?

The word "stakeholders" is easy to understand, that is, what benefits are involved in this product. Just like the stakeholders in e-commerce, there are consumers (of course, consumers also need to be subdivided), commodity providers, platform providers and even some advertisers.

Third: the interests of stakeholders and their composition?

In fact, interests are nothing more than "money and power." In today's commercial society, interests are even more simple and lovely, basically for money. So the most important thing is to analyze its interest composition, that is, how the money is calculated.

Next, I use a simple project to further illustrate this idea.

Now I'm going to build a B2B platform for tourism product trading. Combined with the company's strategic goals, I began to think about the above three issues:

1. What is the vision of this product?

A: In order to let buyers (that is, channels) get cheaper tourism products.

2. Who are the stakeholders of this product?

A: Buyers (we define them as channels), commodity suppliers (we define them as product wholesalers) and platform providers (that is, my company).

3. What are the interests of stakeholders and their interests?

Answer: Buyers: increase profits, and their profits = sales volume * (average selling price-average cost), in which the average cost can be divided into "labor cost" and "procurement cost". The effective premise of this formula is that the buyer (that is, the channel) does not have the cost loss caused by inventory backlog.

Commodity suppliers: the interests and interests of suppliers are actually the same as those of buyers, but the starting point is different in the process of analysis, so I won't go into details here.

Platform vendor: profit, and its profit = platform sales * commission.

Since it has been mentioned in the vision that the main service target of the platform is buyers (that is, channels), we will explain how to increase their income one by one according to the order of channels, product suppliers and platform providers.

channel

According to the knowledge taught in primary school mathematics textbooks, by controlling variables, we know that if we want to improve the profit of channels, channels can increase the profit by increasing sales (that is, the number of products sold to direct customers through channels), or increasing the average selling price, or reducing the average cost (labor cost and procurement cost). Because the selling price is adjusted by the channel itself according to the market situation, we can't control it, so we can think about this problem from increasing its sales and reducing the average cost.

Let's talk about increasing its sales. As a channel, I want to increase the sales of my products. What should I do? ? Because the channel of platform docking is mainly stores now, we have summarized the following two points from the direct customers faced by stores:

First, for individual travelers, I need to have diversified products to meet people with different tastes and improve the base of product audiences;

Second, ensure that the product inventory of popular routes is well understood. For example, the Olympic Games is coming, and many tourists are going to see it. Then I have purchased enough products for the Olympic Games, and the sales volume will certainly not be bad;

Third, I can quickly find products that meet the needs of customers for single-group customers who make inquiries;

Let's talk about reducing the average cost:

First, subsidies. In fact, many tourism B2B platforms now use this to rapidly expand the market, such as the tourism circle. This is a simple and rude but effective method.

Second, look for products with lower prices. Really? Yes Just as airlines will handle air tickets at low prices if there are empty seats on the day of take-off, all walks of life have reduced prices because of the backlog of inventory.

Third, price comparison. It can be the price comparison between different trading platforms or between different suppliers, all in order to find the lowest price.

Is there any other way to reduce this cost? I want to say yes, but keep it a secret (bite me if you dare, hahaha).

Therefore, for the analysis of channel benefits, we can sum up several demand points: 1. We need to see many products (the corresponding function point may be the display of product list); 2. Know which lines are popular (the corresponding function point may be product recommendation); 3. Quickly find products that meet the requirements (the corresponding function point may be product screening or sorting); 4. Understand what low-priced products are available (the corresponding function points may be the recommendation of low-priced products or the ranking of prices); 5. Compare product prices (this function point is a bit simple)

Product supplier

The description of the control variable method is the same as that in this part of the channel, so I will get to the point directly:

How to increase the sales volume of suppliers, first of all, we need to understand the composition of sales volume. I make an extreme assumption: suppose that the product is divided into two levels: A and B, and A has a high sales volume; B's sales are low. Then two ways for me to increase sales are:

First, increase the inventory of Class A products, ensure the exposure of Class A products, and let more Class A products be sold;

Second, control the inventory of Class B products and sell the overstocked inventory as soon as possible;

Let's talk about reducing the average cost, because the company's business can't cover the cost control of suppliers for the time being, so this piece will not be discussed for the time being.

We can sum up two requirements for increasing sales: 1. Recommend our own popular products (the corresponding function point may be the bidding ranking of popular products); 2. Recommend products that have been promoted at reduced prices-commonly known as "abandoning the group" (the corresponding function point may be the bidding ranking of low-priced products. . )

Platform provider

Among them, the commission ratio is beyond the scope of this article, so we consider this issue from how to improve the sales of the platform. As mentioned in how to increase the sales of suppliers, platform vendors also need to distinguish between A and B products. Then recommend it. I think this is the purpose of many travel websites with home pages.

finally

In fact, the analysis of this small project is not thorough, and the profit model of the platform is also very simple. When the profit model becomes complex and diverse, the analysis results will definitely be very different according to different emphases. I hope my next article can give my own views on the business model.

Bibliography: Software Methods Pan Jiayu