Hello. In this session we are going to examine issues related with Beyond the Chasm. You may remember that earlier we talked about Crossing the Chasm. However, there's life beyond the chasm just like there's life before the chasm. Now context is always very helpful. So Jeffrey Moore wrote his book Crossing the Chasm, the first published edition was 1990. Currently it's in its third edition. Approximately five years after Crossing the Chasm, Inside the Tornado made its appearance in the marketplace. And much of the material that we're going to be discussing in this session is from the book Inside the Tornado. And that particular book referred to how the high tech companies develop a product from end to end. So it was not just about early markets, not about innovators and adopters only, but also all the way, right down till, you know, when the product has gained acceptability in the mass market. So let's just examine now the various stages. So there's the early market, okay. We already talked about the fact that the early market is comprised of visionaries that love technology, so they embrace it, but then comes the chasm, the gap between the Early Market and the majority. Okay, now the majority are a little more cautious, they're a little bit more pragmatic, a little bit more cynical. And rather than just dealing with as one big lump sum mainstream market, the way we had, Inside the Tornado, or Beyond the Chasm talks about actually splitting it up into three different parts, the Bowling Alley, The Tornado, and Main Street, okay? Let's take a look at each of these in turn, all right. But first let's again provide a thumbnail sketch of each of the different aspects of the market or the different adopters in the category as the product progresses. Is from introduction to maturity and hopefully not the kind yet. Okay so the early market is a period of visionary excitement. Okay, everybody's very excited. Not everybody, but visionaries are very excited about the technology. The chasm is a period of despair because future growth is a issue, is at stake here. How do you get the product from the visionaries to those who are not visionaries, who are not that excited about the technology? The Bowling Alley is a period of niche based adoption, or niche based adoption, depending upon how you want to prononce the word. The manufacturer is now concentrating on very specific, minute slices of the marketplace. The Tornado is a period of mass market adoption and also churning, which you will see in just a little while. And the Main Street is a pair off to market development where the brand expands to fulfill it's potential in the regular world. And End of Life is a period of transformation and evolution, because all technologies give way to new technologies. Innovation comes into play, new paradigms come into play, new technologies come into play. All right. Let's take each of these in turn. Just the three of them, the bowling alley, the tornado, and mainstream. Okay, so the metaphor is Bowling Alley. Why Bowling Alley? Because Bowling Alleys are narrow, okay. The good news is that the new technology has crossed the chasm and established a beachhead in one of these niches in the market. It has gained acceptance from select missions in the mainstream market, but still has a long way to go before mainstream adoption, before mass adoption, okay? The strategic focus of over here is on developing the whole product for a specific niche or niches. So for over here we have three segments. Segment one Segment 2, Segment 3. And as you can see over here, Segment 1 is the most completely catered to. They have access to App 1, App 2, and App 3. Segment 2 is getting there. They have Apps 1 and 2 available to them. And Segment 3 really only has one app available to it. What it basically says is that to develop a whole market. The whole product cultivate an entire niche, okay, and then use that to expand your appeal to the rest of the market. The Tornado the key characteristics of The Tornado of any tornado, the metaphor of The Tornado suggests a churning this great upheaval. So The Tornado churns the market. It churns over products and services and infrastructure. Old paradigms, old business models, old technologies and companies are obliterated. Kind of, they are marginalized. And new companies are propelled into dominating positions, often in positions even unimaginable to them. So, it's not as if they had always visualized or envisioned that success but it may come to them and it may surprise even them, okay? What should be the strategic focus in a Tornado? First, the company should focus on infrastructure buyers and companies because these are the people and client company, because the infrastructure buyers are the people that have the budgets. Okay, because tomorrow is ballooning, during The Tornado phase demand is ballooning. It far out-steps the supply. Okay, speed and operational excellence are very important. It's very important to be speedy to make sure that you execute, you deliver. Why? Because everybody is impatient now. The companies want the product. Too many delays will actually cause them to become irritated and upset and you don't want that to happen because you don't want to lose an opportunity. The goal of the strategic focus, again, is to maximize market share through aggressive pricing and competitive strategies. We don't want to be timid at this stage. We want to leverage the opportunity to the hilt okay? And we want to aim for global appeal. We have left the niches behind in the bowling alley. Now we are going to broaden our focus and go for a global appeal. As many companies as possible that can buy our product. We would be very happy at this stage if that were to happen. Now we come to Main Street. What are the key characteristics of Main Street? Again, the metaphor stands for that the manic phase of infrastructure replacement has subsided. Now we have this slow moving traffic on Main Street. Okay, and the power has returned to the customer. Remember what we said during the tornado phase. Demand is ballooning, it far outstrips the supply, okay? So when demand far outstrips the supply, the power is with the supplier. But when the demand subsides, okay, the power returns to the customer because they're not as manic anymore about trying to get hold of the technology. The rate of growth slows down as a result, okay? And companies very often have to run faster just to stay in the same place. And the emphasis on cost containment increases. Which is why very often you hear, client companies, customer companies negotiating and haggling with suppliers on prices. The Main Street strategic focus is that the end users begin importance. The people that are actually gonna be using the technology, remember in the tornado we set our focus on the buyer, the people that have the budgets. But now the end users regain importance. Mass-customization strategies begin to be explored. And growth through niche-specific extensions, meaning we have a whole product. We add one little element to it. So maybe we add training and support to it. Maybe we add dashboards to it. Like a desktop dashboards to it. Maybe we add a 24 by 7 customer service support element to it, etc. So whole product does one other key add on that increases the overall value of the offering. And companies are also encouraged to experiment with their offerings and cannibalize, and phase out their low performing products and services. Because that will then allow you to understand what actually will allow your company to grow on Main Street in an unhindered way. So in summary, crossing the chasm does not guarantee prosperity for a new disruptive technology. There is a lot of life after the chasm. There's still plenty of work to be done. And tricky growth stages to be negotiated. Like The Bowling Alley where the emphasis is on whole product development. Like The Tornado where the emphasis is on speed, on implementation and broad growth. Okay? I like the Main Street where the emphasis is on going back to the drawing boards. Taking a look at the whole product and adding a single dimension that would have a very strong pulling power, okay, which would then allow your product to appeal to even a larger portion of the market.
