Planned Obsolescence - Pain Or Gain?

Hello my #qc family! It's been a while here. How are you doing? Trust it's going well with you. Happy holidays! It's a delight to be part of this week's prompt. Welcome on board and to my blog.

Planned Obsolescence

On seeing this prompt, my mind immediately flashed back to how I feel whenever I buy a product especially electronics and couldn't get its spare parts in the market when it develops any fault. Or if it breaks down sooner than I expected, not long after purchase, which is as a result of poor quality. So,I don't think it's good for companies to implement planned obsolescence in their products.

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The reason is simple. Any company that does that,will lose customer retention, loyalty and trust. Who wants to keep spending money on a particular product on a regular basis without economic value? Definitely not me nor anyone I know.

One of the products(water ionizer machine) I purchased 3 years ago has a life span of 25 years and 5 year warranty. By research, I found out that this very company has been in existence for the past 52 years, and a lot of people who purchased their products have been using it for a long time without regrets.That's the true definition of durability and integrity.

This has also earned the company customer's loyalty, as they retain most of their customers, who in turn, refer them to their family and friends because of the trust they have in the products. This automatically saves them advertising costs too. So, the lifespan of a product should depend on the kind of product. Phones or other electronics cannot share this same lifespan with cars. Each product has its dynamic so should their lifespan be, but it shouldn't be anything less than 10 years.

Planned obsolescence has more of a negative impact on the companies than one can ( especially the company) ever imagine. While the company may aim at making short term profits, they risk losing their customer base in return. Not only that, the company may also stand the risk of facing legal charges from individuals or a ban from the government. The users on the other hand experience negative impact as the products which would be bunches of waste to them, due to its substandard nature.

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For companies to stay in business and avoid bankruptcy, instead of implementing planned obsolescence, it would be wise if they focus on long term strategy, rather than short term profits, they should be integrity driven. They should invest in continuous innovation, empower employees and set standards that would attract the best hands, for quality products.

Lastly, to avoid taking desperate financial decisions that may have negative impact on the company, they should maintain a quarterly cash flow operating system and review expenses on a monthly basis, to avoid incurring unnecessary costs.

Manufacturing high quality products would attract customers organically, with little or no cost on advertising, instead of implementing planned obsolescence strategy.

This is my response on @queercoin community weekly contest #182, you can join here

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