Now to the more recent events. Everybody knows about the war in Ukraine. Unacceptable, unbelievable outrage, that will definitely take a special pace in history books. Also in history books of business and product approach.
It is not the first case, by the way. We all remember World War II, whence several businesses still carry an imprint on their reputation: Siemens, Hugo Boss, Mayer, BMW, Audi, Volkswagen etc.
These days the only type of reaction to the war we see is suspension of operations. I’m not talking about government-issued sanctions and restrictions, I’m only talking about voluntary business decisions. The alternatives are obvious: loss of revenue vs loss of reputation.
What’s interesting for me here: some offline businesses, mainly pharmaceutical manufacturers, admit the fact that their production is important enough (for customers) to keep the importing operations, though maybe with limited assortment of drugs. Most online businesses, therefore, admit their services are not that important for customers?
There is also an interesting case of Mastercard and Visa (joined later by JCB), who voluntarily stopped their service for russian-issued cards, and that was not about reputation loss. In my opinion their services are somewhere at the life-supporting level of drugs, but their market penetration (or rather life penetration) allows them to regard and use their product as a mighty war weapon.
Now back to the subject. As product managers we have to answer some questions:
- does the product have an impact significant enough to actually harm it’s users in some situations: by recalling licences and accesses or by continuing the operations? Is it acceptable to use the product (or loss of it) as a weapon of war or blackmail? what are the metrics to set as goal here; how to calculate the reputation loss and compare it with market share loss?
- is there a way to pivot in order to help — help in what way can be seen best?
I’m surprised that no online product chose an active role. No product embedded, for example, additional commission rates for russians; nobody demanded obligatory charity donations along with regular payments (like donate to supporters of Ukraine while you pay for your Netflix account). The only way to reprimand russians is to deny them service at all?
What I did notice:
- airbnb launched a separate free accomodation category for refugees
- Google created a new attribute in business profiles for hotels to let people know whether they have refugee accomodation options Google also created a new Air Strike Alert app for Android users and concentrates on information reliability analysis
- of course, a lot of charities and volunteers joined the movement of helping refugees, but it’s their core business and there’s no product change here
What would I have done as a product manager, if I were in a position to act? I would choose to act, not simply retract from a spoiled area. Every crisis is an opportunity for growth, they say. Not only for those who are in crisis, but also for those who are able to help.
Lose revenue or reputation? No. Gain both revenue and reputation: earn more and share extra money with the injured party. Am I too naive?
Let’s make it an excercise in product vision: how to utilize such an unfortunate opportunity to make your product stronger? I’ll take a look at the products I use daily and suggest what could be changed or expanded in order to save reputation, help ukrainians and keep russian customers. The most obvious way is to raise the prices for russians, but I’ll try to come up with more ideas.
- as a runner I use Garmin watch and Garmin Connect to track my runs. I already bought the watch, and the app and web site are free; but they could close the service (or parts of it) under subscription payment or promote charity payments to dedicated funds; they have regular ‘challenges’ with preset distance — new ones could be created, again with charity goals or wider communication of information about war and it’s victims. They could sponsor ukrainian runners, pay for their registration to future runs out of these funds etc. Same goes for Strava, who just closed the access to their app/site for users in Russia (based on their geoposition)
- booking left russian market. I would design a new feature: pay for accommodation for other people (not necessarily ukrainians, it could work always for any people in need of accomodation). Let a user set some fixed commission, added to their own reservations, that would go to pay for somebody else’s accommodation. Or maybe let them make an ‘accommodation sospeso’ (after caffee sospeso): pay for a day or several in a predefined hostel for the first refugee to come and ask
- the same ‘sospeso’ idea works for any kind of retail: clothes, drugs, furniture, hygiene stuff, pet food, fuel, electronics, even arts. Of course, the stuff will not be ‘suspended’ exactly where paid for, it will have to be transported to the regions in distress
- grocery delivery services. Their core function is effective distribution of the tasks between contractors. So they could pivot to distributing the tasks between volunteers: tasks from people in distress, needing some delivery or help at home or hospital, or organizations needing people to help rebuild or reconstruct homes and utilities, or funds and communities needing volunteers to help in hospices, hospitals, schools, zoos, animal shelters etc
- GitHub and other CVSs. GitHub withdrew all the licenses and refuses to prolong contracts. What it could do: make all code contributors licence their code as free to use in Ukraine (or by ukrainian developers). It will then become a choice for customers: share their code and product with the injured party or leave the platform. This feature needs exhaustive research about how to control who uses whose code, but that can be done and controlled with enough precision
- Slack recalled some commercial licenses (I’m nor sure by which principle). I would simply degrade the commercial users to a free license with a very limited assortment of features and block the possibility to buy a full one, or demand additional payment to prechosen charity funds helping Ukraine
- Cargo services (never used one on commercial scale, but anyway). Maersk and others just suspended their deliveries. They could for example demand that a fixed part of any kind of cargo goes to Ukraine regardless of where it was intended for. Or they could demand an additional payment along with an ordinary contract payment for deliveries to Ukraine
- Bank and money services. Well, they only operate the money, so only money can be affected: raise the commissions for everything but charity donations
- e-learning platforms. Add an additional course ‘How to detect and resist propaganda’, make it obligatory for russian users Any ideas to add to my list?
Wasted lives cannot be remedied by money or any kind of business opportunity. But I do strongly believe that simple retraction may be the easiest, but not the best way to react.
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