Product planning

Sometimes there is serious work to be done.  In fact, I would go as far as saying that most of the time there is serious work to be done.

The bike industry is extremely fast moving.  It sounds silly on the face of it but the push forward in terms of technology is relentless.  If you think about mountain bikes, in the last twenty years the progress in transmission, suspension, braking and frame materials is extreme.  From rigid steel bikes, to aluminium frames, suspension forks, full suspension and carbon fibre.  It is a pace that mean that you have need to keep up.  The industry has built a reputation for itself, and the expectation is for something new at the end of the year.

1994 - which is when I got my first proper bike.

Don’t misunderstand me.  There is real progress here too.

Currently we are trying to work out the direction and capacity for developing new products.  Not because we have to think of new ideas to keep the momentum.  Ideas really aren’t the problem.  It is the capacity, and the danger of spreading knowledge too thinly, it is also about picking priorities from the wealth of ideas that we have.  What will work best worldwide?  What is the direction that we want to move in?  At the table is a largish group of interested parties.  Everyone is passionate, which is a prerequisite to working there.  It is an enviable position to be in….. but…. well… it is work.  We are all experts in our own way…. but trying to decide what might be required from the brand or demanded from the public in a couple of years time is extremely demanding.

I am tired today as a result.  The riding yesterday seems like a distant memory.  On the upside, I see a Boeing 737 in my near future – Christmas will be spent back in the UK, and I am beginning to count down the days.