Recently I went out shopping for a mobile phone,
for my dad who is 77 years young. For long, he has deserted himself from all
personal techno gadgets like computers, mobile phones etc. By some surprise he
became interested in having a mobile phone. He gave me a list of specs, that he
needed in the phone. The list goes like
this. As he has some hearing difficulty, he wanted the mobile phone to have a
loud ring tone and a high pitch headset volume, so that he could hear clearly.
As his vision is weak, owing to his age he wanted the phone to have numbers in
the dialpad that are large and visible, so that it is easy for him to key in
the numbers. He wanted the phone to have a camera and a music player. He also
insisted that the phone should be long enough to stretch from his ear to the
mouth. And of course he wanted it to be a very easy to use handset, with not
many commands and options. To top it all he gave me a shoestring budget of Rs.7000/-.
I started my search for a mobile phone that
suits his description. Unfortunately, I could not find any in the market that
exactly suited his specification. I spend quiet a lot of time in the internet
to see many phone models of different brands, to see if I could find one which
satisfies all the requirements. If it had one feature the other was missing, so
on and so forth. I finally settled for a Sony R-306, which was the nearest
match, I could find.
This shopping exercise made me realize that,
while most of the companies are working towards catering to the need of the
younger generation, not many companies really think of the senior citizens, who
infact have a higher disposable income. While trendy phones with innovative
features, such as GPRS, 3G, Bluetooth, instant messaging, PC sync captures the
interest of the youngsters, there is a naive segment which needs mobile phone
just to talk and stay connected.
Nokia, has been a trendsetter in customization.
While I have been wonderstruck by their quick adaptabilty to the Indian market,
in terms of offering mobile phones with Indian languages built-in its firmware
and dial pad printing, it was indeed a surprise that there are no phones that
are customized to the senior citizens.
I have heard that in the US there are specialized stores
which stock and sell odd size items, such as
jeans, apparels, footwear, mattresses, cutlery, measuring cups etc which
are of odd sizes not available in normal stores. This to a great degree talks
about the demand for customized products.
My friend, Mr.Gopi who is a left hander shared a
interesting fact that opened my eyes to something that I have never thought of
before. He said that the world is not fair. It has created all things for the right handers only. For example, all
ready made shirts have a shirt pocket in the left hand side. This makes it easy
for the right hander, to put in a pen and take it out, but the left hander will find it difficult.
Just try it. Is it not true?. Same is true with many more things, like the way
buttons are placed in the shirt, the scissors knives, the tea cup handle etc.
With around 7 to 10% of the world population being left handers, is it not a
huge market we are talking about?. My elder son who is also left hander, is
fascinated by the idea and he says that once he grows up, he will create things
that will be specifically easy to use by left handers.
The future of
marketing is in customization. The Mc Donalds in India, makes a variety of Veg.burgers, whereas
you find just one veg option in the USA. Same is the case with other
food chains like Pizza hut and Dominos which serves tandoori style pizzas, in India.
There is a beautiful saying, “Necessity is the
mother of all inventions”. It is only when such needs are felt that they are
created. Empathy, therefore is not just a good quality but also a wonderful
business opportunity. Customization can open doors to big business. Ask
yourself, “How much customer oriented am I?”
Happy Reading,
D.Senthil
Kannan
Article dated May 2009
