The network effect of The Planner Studio
When we set out to build The Planner Studio, we wanted to create a platform that would get better with every customer. We wanted to offer the possibility of a strong platform that could still be tailored to the customer’s needs. That is why flexibility is one of the core principles on which the platform is built.
The network effect: Why The Planner Studio platforms get better for every customer
Every day we work to enhance our platform with new features that we believe our customers want. However, we also receive many feature requests from existing customers who are willing to pay us to build them directly into their configurator. It’s a fine balance to decide which features should go into our core offering and which are so customer specific that they don’t benefit other customers on the platform. We have chosen a path that gives us the best of both worlds.
Features built right into the platform
Features that we build directly into the platform offering can be added to most of our existing live planners fairly easily. Previous examples of features we have chosen to build directly into the platform are our ‘View in AR’ feature and our ‘View Dimensions’ feature. This means that all new Planners come with this functionality and Planners shipped prior to these features will be updated with the capability (however, the customer must opt-in to enable them so that we avoid adding unwanted features to live Planners).
Features for specific customer needs
Some customers pay us to develop and integrate specific features for them. This could be a feature they’re really keen on and we don’t have on our roadmap in the near future. In these cases we develop the feature specifically for their configurator solution. However, because they are on our Planner platform, the feature can be integrated fairly easily into other Planner solutions if needed. In the past we’ve also had customers come together to split the bill for a specific feature they both want, allowing them to reduce the cost of implementation.
A previous example of a feature built this way is our Pre-Set feature, which allows customers to build from a pre-defined configuration so they don’t have to build from scratch. This is also useful in physical stores to allow customers to build out from a displayed product, for example.
We believe in integrated systems
We live in a world where there is no shortage of tools and programmes being used in your organisation. One tool for accounting, another for the e-commerce platform, another for CRM and yet another for marketing. It can quickly become a pain to add a new system to the mix. At The Planner Studio we are well aware of this, which is why we put so much emphasis on integration with other systems. And as with our features, we wanted to create a similar network effect. This means that we have built our integration engine as middleware that can be extended to an infinite number of systems. The result is that every integration we add works with the integrations we already have. So when we add a new e-commerce integration, it automatically fits in with the rest of our integrations at the other end. So far we’ve focused a lot on e-commerce platforms and ERP systems, but another example could be marketing platforms that allow you to synchronise leads from the planner platform to your chosen marketing tool.
The network effect of our integrations is similar to that of our features. This means that if we create an integration for a new system for a particular customer, it could be easily ported to other customers using the same system.
Conclusion
This network effect ensures that the platform grows stronger with every customer, every feature and every integration we develop. So you don’t have to worry about investing in legacy technology that doesn’t evolve. The more customers we have on our platform, the stronger it gets. That was one of the main goals we had when we started building the platform.
We’ve seen far too many outdated configurators out there. Don’t be one of them.
