Simplicity Vs Complexity

Advantages of simplicity to larger companies

The demand for simplicity is growing in many parts of the world and there are reasons why a large firm may also benefit by being simple. Some of the benefits are mentioned below:

Customers are demanding simplicity: Any company, be it a large MNC or a local store has to provide what the consumers demand. The customers are now demanding simple products that serve the purpose. 65 percent of Americans complain that they are overwhelmed with the technology driven complex products.

Change in the lifestyle of consumers: More and more people around the world are downshifting their lifestyles. Some are doing it by choice some unwillingly. This change in lifestyle makes it important for the large companies to give simple solution to keep serving this audience.

Over-engineered products cost a lot of R&D and time: In a time of scarcity, companies can no longer afford to invest lavishly in R&D to come up with complex products. Several Fortune 500 companies slashed their R&D budgets in 2010, which amounted to a total of $550 billion (Rs. 27.5 lakh crore).

Small time competitors are stealing the market share with simplicity: Business software companies like SAP and Oracle are facing competition from cloud vendors like salesforce.com, which simplifies the lives of tech buyers by reducing all the issues associated with expensive software upgrades.

Older audiences are rejecting technology: Technology today has become so complex that the older generations are not willing to use it. They rather prefer to stay away from any of such devices and go in for a relatively simpler device that serves the purpose.

Why are companies still making it complex?

Despite growing evidence that consumers want simplicity in the products and services, and despite the fact that over engineered products are no longer sustainable, many companies find it difficult to let go of complexity and adopt simplicity. Some of the reasons for that are mentioned below:

 Consumers are not willing to pay premium for simple products: Large companies believe that a consumer will pay a premium price only if the product is loaded with features. The fear of losing the power to charge high prices and earn high margins makes companies shy away from simplicity.

Complexity has been lucrative in the past: Most of the companies look for solutions in the past. But what worked that time might now work today. Similarly, if complexity worked in the past does not mean it will work in today’s time of scarcity. For this, companies keep convincing their consumers to constantly keep upgrading their life style.

Companies are stuck in an innovation war: Often we see that companies are fighting a never ending battle with each other on innovation and engineering. Often to maintain the leadership in the market or to keep the stakeholders happy companies are forced to out-innovate the others, leaving the consumers with over engineered products that they do not need.

Large companies don’t always design for the end-user: Currently technology is anything but human-centric says John Maeda, president of Rhode Island School of Design. The products today are designed as per the technology available and not the consumer’s requirement. A simple example to that will be the cameras in the cell phones. It was not a requirement of a consumer to have a camera in the phone. But the companies could easily fit in the camera and make it a selling point. The need was generated by the same companies in the minds of consumers about the camera phone.

Innovation targets: The target for some large companies is the number of patents filed each year and the percentage of revenues dedicated to R&D. The value of a product should not be proportional to the patents associated with it, rather the value of the products should be measured by the value it delivers to the consumer.

Shifting the emphasis from R&D driven complexity to consumer valued simplicity will require companies to make some fundamental changes in the way they develop products.