What is it with Gillette? I had just come to terms with needing two blades in my razor. Then they brought in that third blade with the Mach III. “Interesting development, but sets a dangerous precedent. I don’t think there’s room for many more blades in that thing,” quipped Tom Peters at one of our ecsw.com conferences.

Turns out he was wrong: last count there were FIVE blades, and still counting.

What Gillette is doing, of course, is keeping its edge. Or, er, edges. As Shaun Smith points out in his book mentioned below, the old days of ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ are gone. Constant re-invention is how to keep ahead of customers. You need to think of yourself and your colleagues as one of those Gillette razors.

"Pan-Am, Wang, C&A, Swissair. Where are they now? Engineers have a term for this: entropy, the natural tendency for things to lose energy and become less effective over time. Strong service brands avoid withering away by constant re-invention to keep ahead of customers." - Shaun Smith, co-author of Managing The Customer Experience

So, there you have it: you are a razor. Go sharpen yourself. I must be doing something wrong, though. I still manage to remove more flesh than stubble, no matter how many blades and lubricating strips Gillette stick in that thing.

Picture credit: www.worldnetdaily.com

Labels: product development