The rocket model is a business growth and product development model that focuses on how businesses
can transcend through the various stages of the economic environment. The model imitates the
different stages that a rocket goes through as it travels through the atmosphere to reach space and then
orbit.
The earthly environment has similar dynamics to the business environment, it can be smooth at some
level, and rigid at other times, it requires various techniques to sail through this environment without
facing a catastrophic end, in this article we go through the various stages that a business rocket goes
through as it travels through the atmospheric/ economic environment to reach orbit (success).
First we need to look at the lay out of the space craft, on the bottom is the booster rocket powered by 9
rockets in the case of the falcon 9, the second engine, and the capsule in which astronauts sit and cargo
to space is packed, all these are manned by a control team in the control tower at the launch station.
In this analogy the three components that make up the space craft are explained as below;
> Booster rocket: Includes the delighters; these are traits that delight the user of the product or
the services, but they do not necessarily satisfy the customers’ needs.
> Second Engine: These are satisfiers, quality that makes the product usable, like safety, reliability,
etc., but also do not address the need of the customer.
> The Capsule: This is the real product/ services and the actual need it was designed to fulfil.
> Control Team: The business development team that is brought together for product/ service/
business development.
We shall now go through the rocket launch model step by step;
1.PREPARATION FOR LAUNCH:
The greatest work takes place at this stage, for a rocket to be
given a green/ to launch, thorough inspection is done to make sure that there are no errors at
all during launch and after launch. Building a space craft in itself is very hard, and extensive tests
are carried out to make sure that the space craft is tested through all dimensions it will go
through as it ascends up into space, this is because post launch repairs and fixing damages is
very difficult especially when the craft is already in space, it costs a lot of money in billions of
dollars to just send another space craft to repair damage on a space craft that is already inspace, not to mention the cost of having a rocket explode post take off, as it can havecatastrophic damages to life as well. Businesses need to adopt the thoroughness that is employed in the preparation for launch, forany product/ service before being launched it should be thoroughly tested, checked, double andtriple checked before it is released to the market, because it would cost a lot more money to recall products to correct any errors, mal functions, and in some cases the damage is too much that the company brand is cast in daught into the eyes of the consumers. Sometimes recalls/ redoes are soo catastrophic that they can lead to companies to close and lose billions of money as well, for example Takata a company that manufactures air bags for virtually every automaker, faced a recall cost of about $24 billion in 2008 and had to recall more than 37 million vehicles, this was due to faulty air bag inflators made which would explode and eject a shrapnel like material that has been linked to at least 20 deaths (Burrows,2018), the question raised was, why weren’t thorough tests done to make sure that such errors could be detected and corrected before the air bags were put into the market?
2.THE LAUNCH STAGE:
For all involved in the space rocket business, the epitome of their success
is when they hear the air space controller announce that “We are now ready for Launch” all the
hard work done comes to this stage. We are ready for launch, at the end of the launch is a
control team, that will monitor all the time the different dynamics as the space craft travels to
space. For a business, it is an exciting time when launching a new product/ service/ making a
business cultural or management change, all the hard work put in to design the product/
services comes to this moment of the launch. However, businesses need to construct control
teams, to monitor the performance of the products and services that have been launched.
Before any product and services is launched, the control team needs to have all unanimously
agreed that the product / service is ready for launch.
During the launch the rocket uses a lot of power and energy, the falcon 9 starts with all 9
engines being ignited and fired at the launch to enable it lift up. In business for all the products
launches the whole organization must be involved, the business needs to use all its available
resources including people to ensure that a safe and productive launch is successfully done,
everyone in the business must know every detail about the product or services, before it can be
launched to the market. Usually management teams underscore the importance of involving lower staff in products/ services launching, they trivialize the importance of the lower level staff in marketing and
promoting the products being launched, it is very important that the whole body of staff are in
sync about the products and services that are being launched.
3.MAX-Q:
After launch the rocket starts to experience different dynamics as it ascends into space,
this is because it travels through various atmospheres as it ascends up, and as it goes up, the air
density increases as the rocket also attains speed, however due to change in the pressure being
exerted on the rocket as it goes up into space, at some point the rocket will get to a point where
the atmospheric pressure is at its peak, and if the rocket is to continue increasing its velocity,
the dynamic pressure can cause it to explode. Max-Q is dreaded by the space control team, but
to sail through it, they have to throttle down on the engines power.
After the launch, the product if very successful, it will also go through Max-Q a point where the
resistance the product/ service will get from competitors and imitators is soo much, every
company will be yarning to make a similar or even better product, the biggest mistake the
company can make is to increase intensity and try to fight off the competition, instead they
need to throttle down observe the product and see how best to improve it.
During the early 2000 Nokia was the biggest mobile phone company, it had great products
especially the Nokia 3210 which was warmly received in the global market, Nokia increased its
mass production of phones, forgot to take a step back and observe what the other emerging
phone tech companies were doing, they failed to improve on what they had built and instead
they were hit with Max-Q, companies like Samsung, Apple, etc have now bypassed Nokia in the
phone business, and even at their peak, these companies have remained very innovative and
they have consistently sought ways of how to make the users’ experience much more better,
and this is what has kept them way above their competitors.
4.MECO (Main Engines Cut Off):
As the rocket continues up into space, as it nears to go into orbit,
it will have to let go off the booster rocket, and this stage is called MECO; at this stage three
things happen simultaneously, first the 9 engines that are fired at launch on the booster rocket
are cut off, secondly the booster rocket separates from the capsule and it returns to earth, and
thirdly the second engine attached to the capsule is ignited and it is this engine that will send it
into orbit. The booster will separate from the capsule at this level and for the case of the Falcon
the control team will attempt to land it safely for re-use on other missions.
At this stage in business, it is very important that the control team looks to improve the
different product traits that delight the customer, they will need to further improve the product
and there are some things that need to be removed from the product and let go, and new traits
introduced, new delighters that will carry the products further into the market and in the eyes
of the consumers.
It used to be very cool to hold a small phone but not anymore; size , colour, shape, etc. these
are all delighters, from the mid-2000s most of the manufacturers of mobile phones
concentrated on the manufacture of very small phones, pocket size phones, but this trend has
since been abandoned by most phone manufacturers, now bigger sized phones with bigger
screen sizes are more wanted by customers, phone manufacturers like Samsung and Apple have
now gone ahead to venture into the production of IPads, and Tablets that have both phone and
computer capabilities, and this is what it means to let go of some delighters and introduce new
ones.
For products to continue on the upward curve of growth, they need to evolve, they need to
excite their users, and companies need to understand that they cannot maintain the same
products for eternity, the production team has to keep innovating and changing, investment in
research is paramount, but they also need to know they have to let go of certain traits and
introduce new ones if the products are to continue being successful in the market, this is what
has kept big companies up in their different markets they dominate.
5.SECO (Second Engine Cut Off):
As the rocket enters orbit, it has to let go off the second engine as well, and the capsule will continue into orbit.
It is very common in product development, that when a product is being developed they try to incorporate a lot of attributes to it, so as to give it an edge over the others, but as the product becomes more successful in the market and becomes more appreciated by the end user, they will want to see something that differentiates this product from the other similar products, therefore it becomes very important that the development team drop some attributes and concentrate on that one or two that will give them an edge over the competition.
The product development team needs to pay close attention to the qualities that make the products usable, the features that make the product be chosen by the customers despite the presence of many substitute products, features like reliability, safety, re-usability, ease of use, etc. These are very important attributes that need to be changed time to time, at different stages of a product life cycle, customers may require one attribute over the other, and because of the cost constraints, the management team needs to know what attribute is more needed than the other and concentrate on that, it is very common for many companies to try to fulfill all the attributes that make the product usable, but in most cases they fail to nail down even one, that is very visible and appreciated by the end user.
Apple has greatly been able to do this, they have prioritized user data safety and they have put features on the IPhone, that make sure that the user’s data integrity and safety is secured. Over the years they have tried to incorporate different aspects and attributes, but now many people buy the iPhone on the basis of safety of information, they believe that their data on the phone is soo secure, and the ability to track the iPhone using the serial number when stolen is another key feature that shows how much Apple has invested in making the iPhone the safest phone to use. The product development team need to ask themselves, what attribute should we prioritize on now, and what should we drop?. For the product to continue to grow and be successful in the market environment it should have a differentiating feature that keeps it head and shoulders above the other products.
6.Orbit:
In the old space program they used to fly shuttles to space and these would orbit earth or
deliver items to the International Space Station (ISS), but of late space X has developed the
capsule which is used to orbit, upon successful entry into space.
There are different facts that happen while in orbit, for example; for a capsule to remain in orbit
successfully, it must maintain a certain speed and altitude above the surface of the earth, and
secondly a space vessel orbits earth every 90 minutes at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour.
Once products have gained significant success in the market, it does not mean the businesses
that launched them can now relax, because success and failure can both kill (pastor Joshua
Selman), over relaying too much on the success can lead to complacency and as we know
competitors are always waiting for one mistake to take you down, therefore companies must
maintain speed in innovation and product improvement even after it has been successful. They
must make sure that innovation drives the products far above other products, there should
always be a distance they maintain between their products and the competitors’ products in
terms of differentiation.
Space is a vacuum with no air and under normal circumstances we would not expect any danger,
however this is not true, in space there are travelling debris, fragments from old satellites, etc
and these can hit the capsule and it can be destroyed immediately, this is what success does,
one mistake and all the success stories can be buried forever.
We have many companies that have faced the tragedy of failure after being soo successful,
companies like, Nokia, Kodak a company that dominated the photography industry during most
of the 20 th Century, they failed to keep innovating and eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2012,
Xerox continued to use the same photocopying technology until new companies like
HP(Hewlett-Packard) came with superior technology and threw it out of the market, other
companies that have gone down the same road of too much success then failure due to
complacency and failure to innovate include; Hitachi, Myspace, Toshiba, Motorola, Netscape,
Compaq, and many more others.
In our next segment of business growth, we shall be discussing how to assemble a competent
and effective control team for product development.