Chief Product Officer / India
What the customer would otherwise discover later
Decisions & consequences
01Replacing one compactness promise with two working arrangements
In 2023 I supported a compact-bench proposition whose drawing showed a footprint of 0.9 square metres. The sales argument was easy to understand: customers wanted more useful working positions in limited rooms. Our design study then followed twenty-four customer teams through ordinary assembly and inspection tasks. The median observed working envelope was 1.7 square metres, including the arrangement around the bench. Fourteen teams needed a wider arrangement and ten a narrower one. The footprint alone did not establish which proposition suited their work.
Sana Kelvethi, our head of design, challenged the universal wording I had approved. My first response was to keep the compact claim and add an explanatory diagram. She argued that the main proposition would still imply a common answer to tasks we had observed behaving differently. Sales colleagues were concerned that two depth options would make the offer harder to explain and complicate stock. Their objection mattered: a more accurate proposition can still create a commercial and operational burden.
I recommended withdrawing the universal claim and funding ₹36 lakh of study and development around two depth propositions. The twenty-four teams remained the scope of the evidence; the observed median was not published as a standard clearance or an ergonomic certification. Engineering review and each customer's workplace assessment retained their proper owners. We described the task arrangement behind each option instead of presenting the smaller outline as proof that every workplace would become more efficient.
The two propositions reached customers in 2025. By March 2026 we had sold eighty-four workstations: fifty-two of the wider configuration and thirty-two of the narrower. That is an observed product mix, not a validation of the original research as a market forecast. The decision left more choice to explain and gave up a simpler launch message. It did not establish increased productivity, fewer injuries or suitability for every assembly task. I would now ask what must happen beside the product before approving a footprint-led proposition. The mistake was not measuring the bench. It was allowing that measurement to answer a broader question about the customer's working space without enough evidence.
Showing the price of the task configuration beside the entry item
A 2024 range presentation showed a ₹41,000 base bench beside a workflow that used a storage module. The module cost ₹17,000 on the same product-price basis, making the illustrated configuration ₹58,000 before taxes and freight. In forty reviewed quotations, twenty-seven workflows needed that storage arrangement and thirteen did not. The entry product was real, but the presentation made it too easy to associate its price with a more complete task setup.
Commercial colleagues wanted to retain the entry figure prominently because competitors' comparisons also began with a base item. They argued that quotations already listed the options and that including every accessory in the headline would make the bench appear less competitive. I agreed that we should not force unnecessary storage on the thirteen workflows that did not require it. I disagreed that a later option list was enough to explain a task image that had already created a different expectation.
We spent ₹22 lakh reviewing the proposition, configuration examples and supporting selection material. I recommended showing the relevant ₹58,000 configuration alongside the ₹41,000 base, explicitly identifying the ₹17,000 storage module and the separately stated taxes and freight. Authorised commercial and finance colleagues retained approval of actual prices and terms. The product decision concerned whether the offer and the depicted job described the same undertaking. It did not replace customer-specific selection or make the storage compulsory for every buyer.
The result was a less striking entry-price story and a more intelligible comparison. We did not claim a measured increase in sales or a reduction in complaints from the change; the evidence here is the corrected presentation and the forty-quotation review. I had accepted the earlier composition because each individual price was accurate. I should have examined what the whole page invited a reader to assume. A product account can mislead through its arrangement even when none of its component numbers is false.
Keeping the returnable-crate promise within routes we could actually examine
Our 2025 delivery trial used ninety-five returnable crates for workshop furniture. At the review date, sixty-one had returned in usable condition, eighteen had returned needing repair and sixteen had not returned. The pilot expense was ₹47 lakh. Sponsors wanted to make returnable packaging a broad range promise, pointing to the recovered crates and the appeal of sending less disposable packaging with a durable product. I supported the direction but questioned whether we had demonstrated the continuing arrangement at the proposed scale.
The logistics team could organise collection around two hubs with known delivery routes. Beyond those routes, the timing, customer storage and return cost were less clear. A crate described as reusable still had to be kept, collected, inspected and sometimes repaired. Combining the sixty-one usable returns with the eighteen repair cases would hide work that somebody had to perform and fund. Treating the sixteen outstanding crates as though they would certainly return would add another assumption to the favourable account.
I recommended keeping the proposition limited to the two hub routes while product, logistics and quality colleagues examined the next cycle. The alternative was a wider launch with the return arrangements resolved during operation. That could have accelerated learning, but it would also have made a broader customer promise before the business understood its ability to keep it. We retained all three outcome categories and did not turn the counts into a carbon or environmental-benefit claim. Such a conclusion would require a different, properly bounded assessment.
By the next review, fifty-three of the sixty-one usable returns had been dispatched again and eight remained in reserve. The choice preserved a smaller programme and its ₹47 lakh expense without claiming a financial or environmental return. It also left some customers outside the offer, which the sales team had to explain. My contribution was to keep the journey after delivery inside the product proposition. Next time I would ask for the return-route account at the same meeting as the crate design, rather than treating the physical object's durability as sufficient evidence that the commercial arrangement could be repeated wherever the furniture was sold.
Paying for an ordinary working week before asking for the order
A showroom visit in our 2026 programme typically lasted twenty-six minutes. The bench was clean, the sample items had been chosen and a presenter knew which features to demonstrate. I wanted a bounded way for suitable customers to examine ordinary work before ordering. We proposed a seven-working-day evaluation with customer and site approval, using a defined furniture configuration and agreed permitted use. The approved ₹68 lakh allocation combined the evaluation fleet and programme activity; it was not all operating expense and did not represent a demonstrated financial return.
Sales colleagues preferred improving the showroom demonstration. Moving furniture to customer sites would tie up a fleet, require transport and create more follow-up than a short visit. Their alternative was cheaper and easier to schedule. I argued that some questions only appeared when the customer's own work accumulated around the product. An evaluation could reveal an unnecessary accessory or a mismatched arrangement as well as confirm a purchase. The programme should therefore count a reasoned decline as useful learning, without pretending it was commercial revenue.
We introduced the limited evaluation route for eighteen teams. At the review point, nine had purchased, four had declined and five remained undecided. We kept the five pending decisions visible and did not present nine out of eighteen as the programme's eventual conversion rate. Product, commercial and site owners agreed the evaluation boundaries; technical and workplace approval stayed with the relevant specialists. No participant was instructed to treat a demonstration unit as suitable for an unassessed application.
The decision funded a more demanding buying experience, with fleet utilisation and transport still needing review. It did not establish that workplace evaluation should replace every showroom visit. I would start with a clearer statement of the question each customer needs to answer, so a week does not become merely a longer demonstration. The useful result is an informed choice about an actual task, including a refusal that tells us our proposition needs a different boundary.