Get Ready to Model

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• List the questions to ask during the requirement-collection stage of product modeling.
• Describe the basic principles to follow when modeling products.
• Summarize the different pricing methods available in the Shared Catalog.

Requirement Collection

In the last unit, you learned that the initial stage in product modeling involves discovery with stakeholders. At this time, it’s important to ask the right questions because having accurate and detailed information goes a long way in helping you design the right product models. 

Here are some examples of questions to ask during the first stage. 

Product-Modeling Principles

After he’s collected a list of requirements from stakeholders and resolved any contradictory input, Devi starts planning how to model products and build out the Infiwave catalog. Here’s some best-practice guidance for Devi to follow.

Know Your Tools

As you learned in the Industries Products and Product Bundles module, you can combine object types, attributes, and picklists to create both simple and bundled products. With a firm grasp of these concepts and a little practice at creating products from scratch, you can make informed decisions when drafting your product model. 

Go Small to Large

You also learned that the best way to create an offer in Shared Catalog is using a bottom-up configuration, and the same goes for product modeling. Start by mapping out how a few commercial products relate to one another, such as bundle configurations, add-on products, accessories, or subscription plans. 

Next, pinpoint the lower-level resources and services that downstream systems use, and consider how these building blocks support customer-facing products during order fulfillment. It’s important to identify common attributes across products and group them logically using object types and product specifications. 

Manage Information Visibility

Remember, commercial and technical products? When planning products, decide what information your customers should see as they browse, search, and order products. Identify the details relevant to those inside your organization, such as ordering, payment, shipping, and other logistical data. This way you can separate commercial and technical products and properly configure their attributes and fields. 

Provide Just Enough Information

Information visibility is an important consideration, but so is the amount of information. Design products with just the right amount of detail to allow customers to order them and enable fulfillment teams to complete orders. Exclude unnecessary or redundant information. Make sure the product models contain product information only, and omit any business data, like customer or contract information that doesn’t pertain to the product itself.

Prioritize Reusability

When it comes to products, more isn’t always better. A good product model employs the reusable components of Shared Catalog to minimize the development and maintenance of the catalog over time. 

Large catalogs require more upkeep, and having too many offers to choose from can confuse customers. Consider amending or expanding existing products instead of creating new ones, and always try to keep simple products just that–simple. Whenever possible, avoid creating multiple products or components when one will do. 

Plan for the Future

Aim to create a product model that stands the test of time. Think about how you’ll need to update the model in response to changes in the market and new sales initiatives. Consider how you’ll introduce new products or promotions and the types of changes that might be needed during the product lifespan. 

Pricing

Another key consideration in product modeling is pricing. Shared Catalog contains a number of out-of-the-box pricing components and strategies. For example, you can configure base, default prices for products, and then use business rules to adjust pricing for different scenarios. As for payments, you can set them up as one-time or recurring, and define product discounts based on the quantity a customer orders or other criteria. 

For product bundles, you can apply a virtual price to the parent product so that its value is a rolled-up sum of the child products price. This helps control the price of child products based on whether or not they’re included as part of a specific bundle. You can also set up automatic price calculations based on specific product attributes or the customer’s product usage.

Up Next

Devi (and you!) just explored the types of information to collect before starting to model products, including several best practices. Let’s move on to commonly used modeling patterns and examples.