What is a Product?

Livnoor Brar
Aug 8, 2017 · 2 min read

The business dictionary has defined a product as:

A good, idea, method, information, object or service created as a result of a process and serves a need or satisfies a want. It has a combination of tangible and intangible attributes (benefits, features, functions, uses) that a seller offers a buyer for purchase. For example a seller of a toothbrush not only offers the physical product but also the idea that the consumer will be improving the health of their teeth.

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/product.html

But in my opinion ‘Product’ is much more than that. It is a solution to a users’ problem and what ever(tangible or intangible) is delivered to the user is just a slice of whole of the product.

In order to give the user an experience of fulfilment of his needs the solution you provide is achieved after going through multiple processes. Each process in-turn came into existence when the user need was divided into small requirements. Thus each process has an input(requirements) and an output (solution to the smaller problem addressed to it). Thus the process by above quoted definition becomes a product.

When you figure out that each process or step to develop is a small product in itself, be it the manufacturing, hiring of people to do job or market analysis etc, you can figure out that that combination of all the small products forms a bigger product .ie. solution to the users’ problem. And what is finally handed over to user .ie. a software tool, a business plan etc. is just the part of the whole product because as we are not only creating a tool but a satisfying experience for the user.

What can thus be concluded is that product by a company is the satisfying experience it creates for its’ business user.

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