A Random Glock 26 Products Tip

Handguns are not new. In fact they've been around for a long period. Everybody knows just about what they appear like, what they do, and who makes them. The market is dominated by such big name firms as Smith & Wesson, Heckler & Koch, Sig Sauer, Beretta, and Steyr. You wouldn't believe that that even the best product manager available would stand a chance of having the ability to introduce a whole new product into this crowded market.

Apparently nobody told Gaston Glock this. As described in a new book, Glock: The Rise of America's Gun, Gaston just happened to be within the right place at the right time back in 1980 and overhead two Austrian colonels talking about the Austrian military's requirement for new pistols. Gaston then did what any good product manager would do, he went and talked with the customer.

The customer in this case was the Austrian defense minister. The minister agreed to allow Gaston to bid on the handgun contract. Gaston then had to come up with a product to sell. He knew nothing about handguns so he went out and bought his competitor's products and proceeded to take them apart to be able to discover ways to build a greater product.

The gun that he ended up creating was nothing like the guns who were currently in the marketplace. The glock 26 gen 5 17 (so called because it was the 17th gun that Gaston made) was made out of industrial plastic which both made it lighter as well as more resistant to corrosion. The handgun was also built out of several subgroups that made it easy to get rid of and replace. Gaston won the handgun contract with the Austrian military.

Once we product managers are too aware of, just having a greater product will not assure your product of success and is not good sufficient to put on your product manager resume. If you really want to capture a significant part of your market, then you are going to have to do some serious marketing.

In the matter of the Glock guns, it was Karl Walter who took the Glock to the states. He faced an uphill battle getting this new and fairly ugly looking gun to be a success. At the time, the Smith & Wesson company ruled the market.

Walter did what any good product manager should do, he focused on getting the Glock to be considered by folks that were going to be buying a gun. He did this by getting the Glock to be featured within the October 1984 edition of the Soldier of Fortune magazine. He followed this up by getting Glocks employed in product placements in both Hollywood films and tv shows.

After the Glock was adopted by the likes of the Secret Service and also the FBI the game was over. Glock had won. What Glock had shown is the fact that a carefully managed promotional campaign can help even a brand new product to enter a market and also to capture a substantial marketplace share.

You could not be the product manager for a firearm, however the story of how the Glock handgun was created and what made it successful probably has a story for you. Just because you are trying to enter a crowed, well established market will not mean that it is important to copy the products that will be already being sold there.

Innovation is a word that's tossed around a lot currently, but it holds a special meaning for product managers. If we take the period to concentrate on what our customers' real needs are before we start to define our product, then we have the real possibility of doing what Glock did and transforming our market. Almost sounds like this is an element that you'd find in a product manager job description, does not it?

Just because you make a superior product will not mean that the world will probably beat a path to your product management door. Instead, you are going to be the person who's responsible for ensuring that the term gets out about how wonderful your product is. Follow the example which has been given to us by Glock and your product should have a shot at being successful.