Originally posted by AfterPentax let's be honest again, if Ricoh is a clever company they surely must read what is being shared on any Pentax forum around the world.
...
it is up to Ricoh to do market research and taking notice of the enthousiasts forums would be a clever way to get the info they need.
I
honestly don't know whether Ricoh follows what's written about Pentax in forums like these, or - if it does - whether it pays much heed... but I doubt it. Seriously, there's an awful lot of dirt to sift through in order to find any nuggets of useful intelligence, much less trends, that might possibly be of any value in setting strategy and developing new products... and in the absence of really obvious trends from a large sample group, how is Ricoh to know whether your opinions - or mine, for that matter - are the right ones to hang its hat on? The time-worn and rather presumptuous "
What Ricoh should do" posts and the wildly varying (often contradictory) advice they prescribe, don't offer any useful patterns or trends in customer wishes. None of them in recent memory mentions anything truly new; it's all been raised many times before in different guises by a few vocal members, often presenting their ideas as some great insight or wisdom that the company has apparently failed to elicit with its own wealth of commercial and technical expertise.
I submit to you that Ricoh knows exactly how it wants to run its businesses - what its strategy is, what it intends to develop and produce, how it will handle marketing, what volume of products it needs to sell at what prices, and why... and we'll either like it or we won't (or, more probably, a mix of the two). But it will change not a jot due to a few discussions and individual "crusades" in these forums. When Ricoh releases new products, that's when we can provide truly useful feedback by either buying them or not. Actual vs forecast sales is a message Ricoh will listen to and act upon.
All that said, if you believe you're onto something with your recommendations for Ricoh, get in touch with them directly and present your data... and be sure to let us know how it goes
Last edited by BigMackCam; 03-21-2020 at 07:46 AM.