Learn About Glock Products Without Investing Too Much Of Your Time

Handguns are not new. In fact they've been around for a long period. Everyone knows essentially what they look like, what they do, and who makes them. The marketplace is dominated by such big name firms as Smith & Wesson, Heckler & Koch, Sig Sauer, Beretta, and Steyr. You wouldn't feel that that even the top product manager available would stand the possibility 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 proper time back in 1980 and overhead two Austrian colonels speaking 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 within 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 learn to build a greater product.

Read the Full Article gun that he ended up creating was nothing like the guns which were currently on the market. The Glock 17 (so called since it was the 17th gun that Gaston made) was made out of industrial plastic which both made it lighter and many more resistant to corrosion. The handgun was also built out of several subgroups that made it easy to eliminate and replace. Gaston won the handgun contract with the Austrian military.

Once we product managers are all too aware of, just having a more suitable product isn't going to assure your product of success and is not good sufficient to put on your product manager resume. If you really want to capture a vital part of your market, in which case you are going to should do some serious marketing.

In the matter of the Glock guns, it was Karl Walter who took the Glock to the country. 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 who 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 used in product placements in both Hollywood films and television shows.

In the event the Glock was adopted through the likes of the Secret Service and the FBI the game was over. Glock had won. What Glock had shown is that a carefully managed promotional campaign will certainly assist even a new product to enter a market and to capture a significant market share.

You might not be the product manager for a firearm, although the story of how the Glock handgun was created and what made it successful probably has a story for you. Simply because you are trying to enter a crowed, well established market doesn't mean that you should copy the products that can be already being sold there.

Innovation is a word that is tossed around a great deal currently, but it holds a special meaning for product managers. If we take the time to focus on what our customers' real needs are before we begin to define our product, then we have the real possibility of doing what Glock did and transforming our market. Almost sounds like this is something that you'd find in a product manager job description, doesn't it?

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