News

It's Time to Change Industry Perceptions

You can't simply point the finger at return on investment, says NetShift's Bob Gallner, when kiosk projects fail. Rather, implementing more successful projects is dependent on the ability of kiosk professionals to educate their customers and deliver what's expected.  

November 5, 2002

When the NASDAQ turned red, after the initial shock, technology leaders and their advisers closed the doors and looked to isolate the problem. When they emerged their analysis was clear - there's not enough focus on return on investment (ROI) and, as a result, too many failing projects.

Bob Gallner, NetShift

In my view this narrow focus is a problem for the self-service kiosk industry because our marketplace holds the perception that most kiosk projects fail, and, increasingly and erroneously, that they fail because the ROI case does not stand up to scrutiny.

While I agree that too many kiosk projects fail, I reject any accusations that ROI is at the heart of the problem. It's a well-known fact that the majority of incomplete kiosk projects die in their pilot stages long before ROI can be adequately measured. My analysis is equally clear - too many projects fail and, as a result, the ROI focus is insufficiently tested. In short, we're not doing things the right way.

Planning to Fail

"If you plan for failure, you will succeed in failure." This old truism could have been written for today's kiosk industry because so many projects are fundamentally flawed during the planning stage. A project may carry on for several months, feasting on a diet of dollar bills and man-hours, before the flaw emerges to read the inevitable last rights.

The majority of kiosk projects are implemented by internal IT departments or by outside consultants with little or no experience of self service or public access devices. Often fooled by the simplicity and intuitive nature of the front end, they fail to appreciate the learning curve, complex partnering matrix and the core competencies required to bring a product to market. As a consequence much of the initial investment is wasted, and the additional funding, usually to restart the project, is difficult to find.

The problems generally stem from a lack of methodology. I have lost count of the times I have been asked to assist, belatedly, with projects that started in the wrong direction. Every project should begin with a thorough needs analysis and be followed by a consultation period with everyone scheduled to be involved (e.g.) users and developers. Nobody should start building a product until its feasibility has been investigated and confirmed, because they will pay for it in the longer term.

Why start from scratch?

What I find absolutely ridiculous is the obsession with starting from scratch; if there is another industry more prone to reinvention I have yet to encounter it. We need to start systematically reusing and reselling our outputs. As Frost & Sullivan points out in its recent report, World Interactive Kiosk Markets, "Diversifying kiosk product lines to offer easily customized solutions to various verticals will help participants expand their target markets and consequently, their customer base."

Achieving customization is a key challenge for our industry and will ensure two things: it will make kiosk experts indispensable and it will deliver a more reliable technological environment. As technology gurus never tire of telling us, this business is about evolution not revolution - working smarter not harder - and it's time we paid more attention to their mantra.

The reason so many organizations go it alone is because we fail to impress our worth upon them. If they truly believe that we will come in and solve their problems cost-effectively for them, they would ask us to. Unfortunately, many of them believe the opposite - making yet another expensive and poorly formed perception.

One of my biggest challenges in the sales cycle is persuading prospects that we don't rewrite the manual for every project, and that we don't treat every project as a technology testing ground. A customer recently informed me that she had, until recently, encountered very similar problems from one project to the next. Trust me, if we build excellent transferable applications and pitch it at the right price, the phones will ring.

The Future

NetShift is experiencing a surge of interest in vertical markets, which, until now, had been resistant to the benefits of self-service. Craig Keefner, executive director of Kiosks.org Association, got it right on target when he talked of the need to focus on applications at the expense of the technology. A mature industry sells to technology followers, not early adopters, and your average sports marketing team doesn't give two hoots for the technology, its only concern is the application The fact we are providing solutions to sports marketers (and HR officers, tourist boards, hotels, etc.) shows that we are making progress.

Analysts predict steady, if unremarkable growth, for kiosks over the next five years, but I truly believe we are well positioned to surprise the number crunchers. If we shed the shadow cast by ROI and develop a mature application base our future must be prosperous. We're the experts; we know how it's done - so let's get out there and turn these costly perceptions into a profitable reality