Opportunity comes in everyone’s life. Sometimes it comes in the plural. And that is where the trouble starts. Which Opportunity is better to grab amongst the rest is sometimes a difficult decision. Can it be solved by following a formula? A slightly inspired real-life story and a lesson from an HBR article.
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The Story of Balram, the Fish Seller
We stay in a sedate but rich locality in Secunderabad. All around, we have magnificent bungalows and expensive cars in the garages that have not moved for many years. Yes, these are all empty nests. The chicks grew up and flew away long back leaving behind rich, old and lonely people, almost in each house. You can smell the dollars from inside each house but you won’t hear children’s laughter or decorations during festivals or loud music of partying. Many of these old people rarely step out of their homes.
Every day, there is a number of street hawkers that enter our locality. They use loudspeakers to announce and sell their products. There’s almost a hawker for every single necessity. These hawkers do brisk business as the senior citizens find it convenient to buy things from their doorstep. Each of these hawkers follows a pattern. They stop at each house, scream from their loudspeakers about their stuff for 30 seconds, and move to the next house.
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This story is about Balram, a person who comes to sell sea fishes, prawns, crabs, only the expensive variety. These are normally not available around our locality. In about half a kilometer radius from our house, there are quite a few other shops selling fishes, mostly selling the regular stuff like Rohu or Katla. These shops also do home delivery.
Balram comes riding a TVS moped only 2-3 times a week with a relatively small crate of fishes. He knows where to stop. Stops exactly in front of those residences, announces his arrival, sells the fishes, and moves on. All his stuff sold in a matter of 30-45 minutes.
He is a regular at our house too. One day I asked him why he did not get the freshwater fishes as well and try selling them to all the residents. In broken English and Hyderabadi, he said that there is a better opportunity in selling the expensive sea fishes.
He explained that he knew that freshwater fishes are important but he also knew that most of his buyers are satisfied with what they get from the fish shops. He felt the seafood that he brings is important for his buyers, as they serve to bring about a break from monotony. But, he knew that none of his buyers are satisfied with the quality of the seafood that they get around the locality. I asked how much he made every day. Rs. 8- 10 thousand only in about an hour’s work only from 14 residents. He smiled and went away.
A person selling seafood talking about Importance, Satisfaction, Opportunity… and making so much money with so little effort. There would be a lesson in that, I was sure.
The Lesson from Balram and a HBR article
I recollected a 2002 HBR article that I read a long time back. The article also used the same terms, Importance, Satisfaction, and Opportunity. I remember the article because it gave the formula to calculate opportunity. Now let me explain it a little
The article says that every successful organization frequently comes across an agonizing set of business opportunities from which it has to carefully pick and work on the ones that would turn profitable.
Now that’s not a simple decision to make. One wrong decision and the organization could end up losing money, time, and opportunity as well. So how does one decide? The article provides a formula. It says that Opportunity = Importance score + (Importance score – Satisfaction score). What are these scores and how do you arrive at all these.
First, you consider each benefit of a service or product, or person as an opportunity. Now ask people who are regular users of this service or product, about how much importance they hold for a particular benefit of a product, service, or person. Ask the same people about their satisfaction level with the current options that they have. Let them rate these two parameters on a scale of 1 – 10. Done? Now put it in the formula. Simple.
Still not clear? Let me give a HYPOTHETICAL example
A Hypothetical Example
Say you have opportunities to promote your new molecule Azilsartan in Plain Hypertension, Hypertension with congestive heart failure, hypertension with kidney disease, and hypertension with diabetes. You want to pick only two opportunities out of these 4. Which 2 shall be your choice? Well, ask your doctors.
Importantly, when you choose your doctors, be sure to have as many doctors as possible and doctors with as many practice profiles as possible. Put the same question about the benefits of your antihypertensive product to each of the doctors and ask them to rate it on a scale of 1 – 10. Do the same thing for the satisfaction level for the same benefit with other antihypertensives or with Azilsartan. Apply the formula and the rest is simple.
Now, try this formula before you finalize your communication options, investments on customers, before a new launch and maybe if you have 2-3 job offers in your hand and you are unable to decide where to go.
Got it? Good!
Want to read more about this. Click here:https://www.productplan.com/glossary/opportunity-scoring/#:~:text=In%20product%20management%2C%20opportunity%20scoring,importance%2Dversus%2Dsatisfaction%20analysis.
See you again. Next week