Balance for Success - Design or Durability?

For any corporation, there is frequently a dispute in balancing the spending for design and durability. It is often too easy to dedicate most of the time and efforts into design, rather than durability, because appearance and stylistic traits are what people see first and tend to believe as the key point for success. Furthermore, with clothing, some businessmen argue that durability can actually reduce the business profit if it works too well - and people come to buy the products less frequently.

But it is critical to deduce the market's result correctly. Some people falsely translate the less number of purchases for an item as the less popularity. There is a catch, however, and it is that especially with items like socks and underwear, most people do not buy new clothes relatively quickly. So, while there may appear like a reduction in the business profit, it is not considered anything major worthy of notice until statistical analysis based on the company's profit data confirms it.

Furthermore, people easily miss a very important point that although durable products may appear less profitable in the short-term, they are better overall in the long-term because once the products have been proven to demonstrate effectiveness in the market, they will continue to receive popularity for much longer period of time in most cases.

Here, an analogy can be made to pizza franchises. It is relatively common to see how once popular pizza restaurant loses popularity once there was a change in the tomato sauce. The pizza may "look" the same, but the taste will be different, and this can cause significant amount of change in the profit level. Durability for clothing follows essentially the same logic as the taste of pizza - no one would go for pizza that looks good but does not taste good at all.

Another angle to consider is the actual efficiency of the products versus the advertised efficiency. Certain companies pride themselves in delivering items that can last for a couple of years. But usually, the actual efficiency is much less. So, it becomes too risky for a company to make a suggestion to alter the manufacturing method without knowing how long it can last for sure. Without having the evidence of accurate data, changing the manufacturing method can lose trust in the customers, which is more detrimental than not making as many profits as one would like.

Also, going back to the issue with design, appearances and styles are "secondary" characteristics, which only apply if the primary characteristics are upheld (this would include durability or taste). By changing the way items are made and processed, this may actually lead to complications in the quality of the items and the way they may behave to decorations. So, in nutshell, anything that happens to the primary characteristics will affect the secondary characteristics of products.

With fickle economic situation, companies should really consider the most realistic approach when dealing with changing the way the products are produced. This includes moving factories to different locations (especially abroad) to ensure that quality is preserved. What may seem like cost-saving in the current time period may back-fire and lead to reduced profit in the long-term based on less happiness from customers, negative reviews from other critics, and overall, damaged reputation that will be impossible to amend.