Defining our product's core purpose

Before Dan and I can go further in pursuing the rain gear market in Indonesia, I believe that we have to discover our core purpose to guide our future strategy. The clarity of our purpose is important not only for us, but also for the other team members as it will inspire and guide their behaviors. In our feasibility presentation, we defined the product's slogan as to make driving in the rain more enjoyable. But what is exactly the definition of "enjoyable" and why is it important for Indonesian motorcyclists? Collins and Porras in their article "Building your Company's Vision" explain how to define a company's core purpose by asking five why's to our reason for existence. By answering more and more in-depth questions of why our existence is important for others, hopefully we can find the core purpose, and the uniqueness, of our product.

In my view, Xacti's core purpose is to help people in Indonesia who use motorcycle as their primary mode of transportation to commute safely and to maintain their productivity during rainfall periods. Safety and productivity is the two basic needs that we want to improve. The features in Xacti are a reflection of the product's core purpose: As we mentioned in our presentation, the basic features are (1) better protection from accidents (safety), and (2) better protection from water penetration and extra room for luggage (productivity). The implication of a good raincoat--or other forms of rain protection gear--in Indonesia is clear enough. Bad weather can significantly increase accident rates and reduce people's ability to perform their routine activities. For instance, as we've already mentioned in our feasibility plan, the January 2013 rainstorm in Jakarta forced many people to stay home, and many government offices and businesses were temporarily closed.

Furthermore, raincoat isn't mentioned in the purpose statement. By not limiting the core purpose to a raincoat, we want to inspire our team to think about innovative ideas in other forms. Helping motorcyclists to commute safely and maintain their productivity during rainfall periods can also be actualized in other forms by, for example, inventing flood protection gears (whatever forms it may take), rain shoes, or rain shelters for motorcyclists. The implication is that raincoat might (or, most likely, will) only be an initial project, and it will eventually become only one among our many product lines in the future. I also choose not to limit the product's utility merely for the wet season as rain sometimes happens in the dry season as well.

There are some critical questions, however: What happens if motorcyclists are already safe and productive without our products? What if motorcycles are no longer the primary transportation mode in Indonesia? Are we going to adapt our core purpose? First, I believe that there will always be a need for extra safety and productivity as driving always entails risks and people always want to be more productive, and thus there will always be enough space for innovations. Second, I think that turning the Indonesian commuters' habit away from motorcycle is not easy as it requires culture change and significant economic improvement, among other factors, and thus it is unlikely that it will happen in the near future. It might, however, happen eventually just as motorcycles replaced bicycles in Indonesia in the 1990s. When it happens, I expect that Indonesia has been able to significantly improve people's living standard, and that is an achievement that needs to be celebrated.