Are you a "must-have" or a "nice-to-have"

Recently at EGS we have been trying to look into the future. No not a sudden conversion to astrology - we have been reviewing our product road map as we try to decide what the next generation of our e-procurement platform will look like. As ever we are driven by our customers on this. We are lucky to have a very active user group which has no shortage of ideas. Our job is to sort the “nice-to-have” ideas from the “must-have” ideas. The definition of those categories got us thinking.

Last week a few of us attended the UK’s networking event of the year – Entrepreneur Country. 300 invited businessmen from all walks of life descended on the Institute of Directors to share ideas, view demos and hear presentations. You won’t be surprised to hear that the current market conditions were a recurring story of the day.

And it was here that the theme of “nice-to-have” and “must-have” appeared again. It struck me that a year ago at similar events all the buzz was around companies like Blyk (cheap mobile service with ads), Flurry (mobile email) and Buddi (GPS pet tracking). None of these companies make you money or even save you money – they just make life a little easier. Great fun when times are good, but when times are difficult you can easily do without them. Surely the definition of “nice-to-have”.

At Entrepreneur Country there was a lot of interest in EGS and the savings our services deliver. One of the key speakers described EGS thus: “EGS….if ever there was a company to work with in a downturn”. As I reflected on that I thought to myself, what would happen if you turned off EGS’s service to our customers? The simple answer is at worst their entire supply chain would fail and at best it would cost them a lot of money in a number of ways. Surely that is the definition of “must-have”

So as we build our Development Roadmap for 2009 our challenge is clear. Keep building “must have” tools into our “must have” service.

And finally....... The Entrepreneur Country dinner saw over 100 people sumptuously fed and watered at The Mint Leaf on Haymarket. Now the food there is “must have”!!