{"id":12968,"date":"2016-01-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-19T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/post\/chicago-developing-a-product-taxonomy\/"},"modified":"2023-08-18T13:22:30","modified_gmt":"2023-08-18T17:22:30","slug":"chicago-developing-a-product-taxonomy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/blog\/chicago-developing-a-product-taxonomy\/","title":{"rendered":"Developing a Product Taxonomy"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\" align=\"center\">Think of your product like a fast-food hamburger or a cheeseburger&#8230;<\/h2>\n<p>It started off with a simple task: \u201cWe need to help the client create a product catalog.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It seemed easy enough, as they\u2019ve been selling their products and services for years; they just hadn\u2019t had the chance to formally document their products. What I didn\u2019t know was that each product they sold, and each service they implemented, was almost always\u2026custom.<\/p>\n<p>So for every Product A they sold:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It was the specific client\u2019s Product A<\/li>\n<li>It was priced differently<\/li>\n<li>It included more \u2013 or less \u2013 than the same Product A sold to the last or next client<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Obviously having products that are similar, but different, are difficult on the people who implement those products \u2013 not to mention the multitude of other associated challenges that you encounter when dealing with a non-standard products set.<\/p>\n<h2>The Search for a Product Taxonomy<\/h2>\n<p>So, my first thought was how to get the client to discuss and agree on what their products were. I started by asking the Marketing VP for the current product catalog and received a short list of products and services. Each product name was very generic and included nothing else: no descriptions, no components, etc.<\/p>\n<p>I next turned to the various Product Managers, who provided product \u2018glossies\u2019 for some of their products. After some initial interviews, they all agreed that they needed to standardize their products but didn\u2019t know how to begin. I started by asking if they could tell me what makes up their products, but they continued to insist, \u201cIt depends on the client.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When I countered with, \u201cCould you imagine if McDonald\u2019s worked that way?\u201d it led to a light bulb idea for me. To get the client to begin to think about what components make up their products, I decided to use McDonald\u2019s hamburgers and cheeseburgers as an example.<\/p>\n<h2>A Product Recipe<\/h2>\n<p>I went to the McDonald\u2019s website and found the product description for each product and the product price. Then I highlighted\u00a0each component of the product.<\/p>\n<p><b>Product<\/b>: McDonald\u2019s Hamburger ($.89)<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Product Components<\/i><\/b>: A juicy 100% pure <em>beef patty<\/em> topped with tangy <em>pickles<\/em>, <em>ketchup<\/em> and <em>mustard<\/em>, the sweet bite of <em>onion<\/em>, all on a freshly toasted <em>bun<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><b>Product<\/b>: McDonald\u2019s Cheeseburger ($.99)<\/p>\n<p><b><i>Product Components<\/i><\/b>: A <em>slice of<\/em> melted <em>processed cheddar cheese<\/em> on a juicy, 100% pure <em>beef patty<\/em> with tangy <em>pickles<\/em> and <em>onions<\/em>, <em>ketchup<\/em> and <em>mustard<\/em> on a freshly-toasted <em>bun<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Both were standard products with most of the same components, with the cheese making the difference in one \u2013 along with an additional .10 in the price.<\/p>\n<p>We discussed that when you order a hamburger or cheeseburger, you can ask for more of \u2013 or less of \u2013 some of the components (no pickles, extra ketchup), but if you ask for two patties (for example), you are either ordering a different product or something that is not a product they offer. Then we talked about how the hamburger was made: By following a standard recipe and the employees following standard procedures.<\/p>\n<p>Then discussion turned to packaging, and this time I used McDonald\u2019s \u2018Kids Meals\u2019 as the example.<\/p>\n<h2>A Taxonomy is Born<\/h2>\n<p>That was all the client needed to start thinking about their products in a different way. When we started, our list was around 30 generic products, eventually growing to over 130 unique products. The initial set of product components also grew, from an early count of 200 to over 1,000. A product taxonomy and product ontology were created and documented, with discussion then turning to components that were reusable across products.<\/p>\n<p>So in the beginning, the client wanted a product catalog but ended up with a better understanding of what products they actually sell, the components and resources that are needed to implement their products as well as a better understanding of their cost associated with product implementation.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks, McDonald\u2019s!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It took thinking about their offerings like a fast-food hamburger, but in the end, the client was able to develop a product taxonomy that worked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":26287,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[15495],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2024-07-21 23:30:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12968"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12968"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centricconsulting.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=12968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}