Hello, Brad Jarvis signing on again to continue our discussion on the impact disruptive technology can have on your sales channel. This week I will be sharing how disruptive technology changes the point of buying decision, criteria and purchasing process with the customer. For more background information, see my case study at the Technology Marketing Center.
Disruptive technology often addresses new uses in the market. We found with RFID that our customers (consumer packaged goods companies) were being asked by major retailers such as Wal*Mart to experiment with a new solution. This changed the circumstances that the CPG’s had to deal with relative to product identification. As a result of the technological nature of RFID, the new decision criteria and vendor evaluations shifted to technical capabilities and whole product solution sets that included engineering support. The purchasing evaluation fell into the hands of technology laboratories that would select new vendors. Suddenly, CPG’s needed to understand how to use RFID on products made out of metal and liquid. This is due to the fact that Radio Frequency is absorbed by liquid, but reflected by metal. I am sure you can imagine way predicting how RF will behave on a can of soda becomes a technology assignment. Therefore, the purchasing circumstances and needs changed dramatically with RFID encoders as opposed to bar code printers. Purchasing agents, price points and traditional buying criteria were no longer the driving force of the sales model. Next week I will share more about the impact this shift of buying power had on the channel and how we chose to respond to the situation. In the meantime, I welcome you to respond with comments of your own on how new technology changed your customer’s decision maker and buying criteria.
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