Post Scriptum

After finishing the draft of Danger: Demolition area I found this:

'Haier became a leader in China's white-goods market, despite heavy competition, mainly because of its expert knowledge of the nuances of the Chinese consumer and its ability to develop products tailored for those needs. For example, Chinese consumers in rural markets used the company's washing machines to clean vegetables such as sweet potatoes. Haier modified its product so that vegetable peel would not clog the machine's pipes. The company then affixed large stickers on the modified washers with instructions on how to wash vegetables safely using the machine. The next generation of washing machines can even produce goat's milk cheese.'

I swear I did not make it up: it's from a paper prepared by Accenture -The Rise of the Emerging-Market Multinational-, and they got it from an article published by Financial Times in September 2004.

What surprised me the most is that Haier did not create a new line of products designed for the specific purpose of washing vegetables. Apparently they are market leaders, so they could have perfectly done that, and this way they would have made people buy a yet another device. Instead, they adapted their design... and if it did work, people would still buy more products from them!

I don't mean to take back what I said in my previous post, but changing the definition of a product from 'something that washes clothes' to 'something that washes clothes but can also wash vegetables and produce goat cheese' (!) sounds a little too risky, doesn't it?