Rapid Production
A Must for Online Businesses
Every type of business makes a selling point out of rapid delivery, making, selling, and bringing a product to the consumer faster and better than their competitors. For an internet business, however, this is particularly crucial. Since an internet business has the advantage over a traditional business of being able to rapidly push updates and changes forward without having to wait to iterate through an entire chain of physical readjustments, they are able to quickly adapt to changing circumstances. Even businesses like Amazon, which deal in physical products, are able to alter themselves faster than a purely physical store, since instead of shipping to one place, they ship from one place, cutting down on the amount of redistribution necessary for any change to their systems.
Since some internet businesses have embraced this sort of streamlined update, in order to compete, other online companies have to do the same if they want to keep up. A company which disregards this tactic will see losses of customers in waves as they fail to adapt quickly enough at critical points. It isn’t even necessary to update that frequently, at least not in all industries, but the key element here is to go from problem recognition to problem resolution as fast as possible. The longer an issue exists, the more time it has to damage your business.
There are many areas in which this sort of rapid change is possible. One is UI. It is very common to see new updates that change the layout or streamlines the function of some service. This sort of update ought to be pursued carefully, though; update how one uses an app too frequently and people will lose patience with relearning it every week or two. Another rapid update field is inventory. Netflix is an example of an online business that quickly updates its inventory. Netflix lives by adding new shows and movies as soon as it can in order to have the most interest in them.
While there are many potential areas in which an internet company can quickly alter their business model, system, products, or services, the primary point is not what is updated, but rather how. As long as an update is needed, the faster it can be correctly implemented, the better. By doing this, online businesses can compete effectively in a dynamic and ever-changing arena.
Great piece Ben! Rapid production is crucial part just in time delivery. You want produce the product you will need for the next couple of weeks and update/improve your product for the next round of production and order inventory for in delivery. This way you can reduce waste and prevent producing too many products that won’t sell.
Thanks for sharing this. This is what I consider the follow through of an internet company. It is important to be able to drive people to your business online, but one of the most important aspects of business is being able to deliver to your customers in a timely and efficient manner. This is how you keep business and get repeat customers.
This is an insightful post. Maintaining updates and uploading constant, relevant content is essential to an effective business model.