Should one care for value?

If more benefits at lesser costs is the definition of value, which product in the picture offers value?

For comparison, one can use various parameters such as follows.

1. Basic function offered by both (the eyedrops in left and right bottle) is same. 

2. Quantity in both is 3 mili i.e. same.
3. Left one is bulkier and heavier occupying more space than right one.
4. Left one consumes more plastic. This parameter determines the 'cost of disposal' (i.e. cost to environment).
5. Left costs rs. 275. The right one costs rs. 327.

Before coming across above alternatives, an imported brand that costed rs. 675 offering same quality and quantity was obviously offering lesser value. All the three products were used over a period of 18 months.

Result of all was found same.

Branded product costing rs. 675 was the one that was pushed by the ophthalmologist. Who should get more value in a typical transaction like this: the consumer, the middleman, the seller or the planet?

There can be more parameters in above list that a consumer and stakeholder may like to add to while making a purchase decision. But the fact remains that SHE (safety, health, environment) of both that of the consumer and planet should come first while taking a decision. 

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder: 

Should one care for value?  http://stayleanmakeplanetgreen.blogspot.com/2013/02/should-one-care-for-value.html 

Less-With-More Because More-Is-Sore http://stayleanmakeplanetgreen.blogspot.com/2013/02/less-with-more-and-more-gets-sore.html 

Who Comes First: Consumer Or Customer ? http://care-is-cure.blogspot.com/2014/10/who-comes-first-consumer-or-customer.html 
Customer or Custo-Mer?  http://care-is-cure.blogspot.com/2013/03/customer-or-custo-mer.html
Experienced A Delightful Payment ! http://care-is-cure.blogspot.com/2014/04/experienced-delightful-payment.html
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul http://care-is-cure.blogspot.com/2014/03/an-experience-of-heart-and-soul.html
Do you keep curing your brand? http://care-is-cure.blogspot.com/2013/01/do-you-keep-your-brand.html 
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality! http://care-is-cure.blogspot.in/2013/04/a-customer-gets-what-she-deserves.html 
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers http://care-is-cure.blogspot.in/2013/05/listen-to-iceberg-of-voc-to-acquire.html
Do You Force Customers To Quit http://care-is-cure.blogspot.com/2014/08/do-you-force-customers-to-quit.html

Make checklists your friends

For some reason I wanted to close savings account operated by three joint holders; me,  my wife and my son based 500 kilometers away from us......

Less-With-More Because More-Is-Sore

Let me wish all the readers "Happy-Valentine-Life"!

Considering "Valentine-Day" as a sub-set of "Valentine-Life", I believe the later is more long lasting than forgetting rest 364-days after 'the-day'.

Yesterday, I was cutting it too fine to reach Mumbai airport to take a 9 a.m. fight to Ahmadabad on a leading airline after an overnight travel from Hospet (south of India). (Thanks to Kingfisher Airlines that grew too fat and heavy not only to fly an airplane from Hubli to Mumbai but also to stay itself afloat above water.)

So I tried to tele-check-in. After 'press'ing '1-after-3-after-4-after-4' on my cell, I managed to hang-up in order to avoid the 'music(y)' noise that I didn't want to hear.

I re-performed the ritual to finally reach '(our) customer representative'. He regretted saying I (my Privilege-Card number) was not entitled for tele-check-in since I didn't hold 'at least a Silver card' (if not Gold or Platinum or whatever other metals were 'invented'). I hung up.

Since mobile-data-connectivity was poor and also I was in a hurry to take the bus to Mumbai, I requested my valentine (wife back in Mumbai) to web-check-in. She gave up after struggling for an hour while advising me to take Indigo flight next time.

"Why (Indigo)? They don't offer snacks (I kidded). Return flight is on Indigo anyway."

"You can take snacks in a restaurant but not flight. Do you know that it took less than 30-seconds to web-check-in on user-friendly screen of GoIndigo.in?"

She commonsensically seemed to tell me that 'function' comes before the 'aesthetic frills' that service providers offer. Ease in day-to-day operations that customers have to perform repetitively is important than one-time activity of marketing the so-called 'innovative' frills such as 'points' on 'partnership-cards', etc.

She was right. First of all, at the airport I got jammed in the traffic right upto the entry to the hall. It was a chaos of both the 'departure' and 'arrival' traffic.

Once inside, this was followed by a jam in the queue to get boarding pass so I went to an 'auto-check-in' terminal to get jammed again. I tried to auto-check-in. I entered flight number before the PNR as in the picture, but the screen would return back to 'start'. I tried a couple of times like a fool before seeking help.

The suited-booted person sporting 'May I help you' badge entered PNR before the flight number and the screen did advance promptly although to reject the 'Privilege' holder's request to auto-check-in. I asked him if PNR was to be entered before the flight number then why the sequence on screen was not so?

He couldn't answer although he did try to convince saying "S-2 flights are not accepted" by the screen.

May be a software issue? Or may be I was really a fool not to know what S-2 was all about.

Finally, I had to settle in a long queue to fetch printed boarding card. The queue was getting jumped in spite of suited-booted traffic assistants (over five of them lost themselves in and around the queue) and with four check-desks functional. I requested one of them (who appeared to be senior) to organize the queue. He disappeared from the scene staring at me followed by a comment 'I-am-not-from-this-area'.

Lean proponents like me call such silo-behavior as 'throwing' responsibility 'over-the-wall'.

Why so much fuss by an 'iron'-card holder like me when more privileged 'silver'-n-'gold' (holders) iron-pressed faces kept staring at the problem?

B---a---d habit of mining for simplistic answers to seemingly mysterious questions.

If the competition had already commodatised-web-check-in service provided FOC (free-of-cost) even to a first-time flyer, what kind of 'differentiated-privilege' the other airline thought it offered?

Technologies like tele-check-in, web-check-in, auto-check-in are anyway installed by the later allowing them to idle unlike the former. Why not put them in service of the planet if not for benefit of the customer. That's the bigger cause by saving associated costs of non-value work?  In that case isn't it an extension of CSR (corporate social responsibility)? 

Does suited-booted more-manpower, more-outsourcing, more stocks, more equipment and more-technology mean improved KRAs such as more customer satisfaction, more productivity, more quality, more cleanliness, lesser jams, lesser delays, lesser damages, lesser breakdowns, faster deliveries and in general lesser crises?

For some I guess so! 

If yes, I hope they are able to do more with more resources.
And I wish they do well in future. 

If no, there is something much more that one needs to find out.
There are organisations who do more with less. In fact, they are able to perform better with lesser resources.
For them more means sore!

Read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Rise-n-Fall in the Rain-Fall 

Take Habits For A Ride 
Can-changing-thoughts-change-a-nation
Do you exercise your choice meaningfully

How To Make A Difference

WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling

Poverty-to-Power of Poetry

Bird that just chirped

Wish To Be Planet-Friendly?: Save ! 

Soon-waste-to-eat, Sea-to-drink !

Don't Save Water on Holi-day

Do You Celebrate Mean-or-Green

Not-Soon, Says Monsoon

Rise-n-Fall in the Rain-Fall

Do you keep curing your brand?

I requested telephone company to shift one of my landlines to my old house. It took one week for them to respond.....