Re: New Generation AccuVote - AT Improvements

["Ian S. Piper" <ian@dieboldes.com>]

>At some point, our price will impact even the positive emotional response
>customers have to our system.  We are heading toward winning the early part
>of the sales cycle, but falling on our ass at the end when they can't justify
>battery, booth, and cost.  November 99 delivery is late unless we (out West)
>can expect to give them a "tradeup" to the new units when they come out. 
>Howard?

 

 

I can try to understand the concerns and frustrations of everybody when it comes to product timing in the market place, but I don't believe we can rush the development of this product.  If we do rush its development we will fall into the same pit we always fall into.

 

THE  PIT

 

1. Global will end up with a kludge of a product that everybody will complain about and expect to be made better.

 

2. Global will start producing the kludge product to fill orders that have been made prior to the kludge product design being finished.

 

3. Global will try to make another product that will be better than the kludge product and then everybody will want the original production replaced by the new product.

 

4. Global will then have an inventory of the kludge product that it can't sell.

 

5. Global ends up having to write off the inventory of the kludge product which drastically cuts if not destroys the company's profits.

 

6. Now, Global will rush the development of the better product to replace the kludge product.

 

7. Start again at item 1.

 

I can imagine its frustrating to sit back and wait for the product to become a finished product while the competition appears to be bounding ahead, but we're in this boat right now because we didn't allow enough time to design the first product to meet everybody's specifications.  To my knowledge, everything reasonable is being done to expedite this product without compromising its design.

 

I hope you can imagine my frustration watching Global spending all this money and never seeming to get to the finish line.  Global is sitting on an inventory of the current units that cost us a lot of money and we have to sell them.  We can't keep selling the latest product that doesn't even exist yet, supply a customer with the current product, support their election (big $$$$), promise to upgrade them at no cost when the new unit becomes available, and then take the old units back and sit on another costly inventory.

 

I know I won't make any friends by saying this but "We've got to sell what we've got".

The PIT is a vicious cycle that we have to stop!  We're all in this together to work together to come to the desired end.

 

And that end is the mission statement:

Global Election System is a total solutions provider dedicated to serving State and Local government with interactive solutions for early and election day voting, plus a variety of other applications, integrity and reasonable profitability.

 

Disclaimer:  All of the above (except for the mission statement) is my opinion and in no way reflects company policy on these issues.

 

Ian