At a recent Financial Services conference I attended, I gained a new perspective on the tradeoffs involved in Product Design. I suppose it would be true of other industries as well:

Customers : Want the product to offer maximum value at minimum cost

Distributors : Want the product to offer attractive margins

Shareholders : Want the company’s overall objectives to be met

The cheapest product in the market will be easy to sell, but will not help the company achieve its own objectives.

The product which offers maximum margins to its distrbutors will not be the cheapest for customers to buy.

And, the ones that are most profitable for the organization, will not necessarily be the ones the distributors want to sell or ones that the customers want to buy!

Therefore, no matter what, each product will involved tradeoffs between the various stakeholders in the equation!

After all, what is Life if not a tradeoff?