Customer Analysis For Product Software
Customer analysis is needed to predict behavior and create demand forecasts for product software. It is also necessary in the development of new products to help select the most profitable choice. To analyze customers, aspects such as demographics, buying motivation, and expectations are studied. Besides basing behavior on software only, customers also look at the network externalities from software packages, such as manuals, add-ons, and training courses, to make purchase decision.All of these subjects are useful for determining target groups (also known as market segments).
Moreover, this information helps determine the optimal solution to the tradeoff between time-to-market and quality. Market analysis results are important to help establish an optimal point between the tradeoff of time-to-market and quality. While customers would love to have a short time-to-market with lots of features and high quality, it is impossible for the vendor to find financial success in this scenario. Therefore, a managerial decision must be made on the resources and objectives for new product development. Risk analysis techniques can be used to manage this trade-off decision (Carmel, 1995). With the heavy competition in most software product markets, gaining early market acceptance is essential to achieving firm success (Trondsen, 1996). This is not easy to do. Product complexity and rapid changes in requirements increase the difficulty of rushing software products to market. There are some ways to relieve this tension of time-to-market.The best way for a software company to remain competitive, is by finding ways to include quality assurance activities during software development and at the same time find ways to reduce the time-to-market. This is one of the key management decisions during product development facing software companies.
Customers can be divided into two groups, consumers (an individual) and corporate buyers. Consumers generally buy software for personal use on their home computer. While they behave as individuals, they are influenced by the environment and the other people around them. For consumers, psychological traits, such as risk-taker versus risk-avoider, play a great role in major decisions by the individual. Many other factors play a role for corporate buyers of product software. Businesses buy product software usually as an indirect material to help them increase the effectiveness of their process. There is a complex interaction of individual and group goals working during the decision-making process that are constrained by available resources. A technique for dealing with the buying process in a firm is the buying center.
Many techniques are used to provide information on customers. Some examples are:
- Customer satisfaction dimensions
- Consumer surplus for software products
- Database marketing technique for software products
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