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Solutionitis - a quick fix in technology marketing?

Technology marketing has an overwhelming tendency to develop and market ‘solutions’ rather than products and services.

Solutionitis is rife. Whether it’s a bundling of old products to make them seem more innovative, or simply a short cut to convince an audience that there’s something bigger than disparate product lines.

Of course, there are valid reasons why some ‘solutions’ really are solutions. As customers, we’ve been sold on the premise that a product isn’t enough and that we need a solution to fix our problem. ‘Solution’ has become a staple of the sales vocabulary. However, it is in danger of becoming a convenient, but inaccurate, way of describing what a business provides. It’s also a way to extend brands to reach into new markets without actually doing any new product development. And there is a real risk that the products and support staff are unable to deliver to the description that the solution has acquired.

Before moving on to fixing the problem, it’s time to look at your own portfolio. Is a simple product being described as the panacea to a client’s requirements? For example, consider how a simple low-end software product for contact management can suddenly transform into a Customer Relationship Management Solution just by leaving the development team and moving into the marketing department.

The effect is often confusing for the customer. Most websites will place the word ‘solutions’ on a navigation bar with a link to swathes of over-inflated explanations that mask the reality of what’s actually on offer.

So what steps do we need to take before becoming victim to the epidemic? As marketers our job is to focus on what we’re delivering and explain how it works and why it’s good – and different. Technology companies need to deliver solutions, but ensure that these solutions are genuine and backed up by components that work to address the need, rather than a variety of repackages. Again, a quick look at many technology websites shows that below the solutions navigation, the actual number of products is minimal – can the same product really be the solution to such a plethora of issues?

The tendency to elevate everything to a high-level business improvement must be challenged. Devices like the BlackBerry let you get email away from your desk; web conferencing packages let you share presentations with your colleagues and customers without having to move; both of these offer direct benefits, but if they are extrapolated to ‘improving your business profitability’ then it’s impossible to know anymore what it is that’s truly different or better, and even understand what it actually does.

And with an increasing trend in non-C-level purchasing power, a simple product doing its job may actually improve sales by being less scary than the ‘big-ticket’ solution sale.

Finally, if you’re concerned about an outbreak of Solutionitis in your organisation, sit down with your product, services and sales teams and run a clinic to check for the symptoms. It’s not an incurable problem.

‘Solutionitis’ is part of the Braincell series of insights published by Wilson Miller, the marketing agency dedicated to the technology sector.