Repost of an old chesnut for the Marketing Boys

There is no use preaching to the converted about how versatile, useful and awe inspiring the C-Bus and Minder technology can be. I think however Clipsal need to consider making it easier for us to preach to the non-believers (aka price driven consumers).

One way many organisations achieve this is through offering entry level products that are either loss leaders or budget options that enable the masses to be introduced to the wonders of C-Bus technology.

Consider a package that includes the following;

1 x L5512 12 Channel Relay
12 x C5031NL Standard Switch Input units
1 x Surface mounted Enclosure

Lets face it, to up-sell this package to include say a 6 channel dimmer, a couple of Saturn's a PIR or two and of course a C-Touch to tie it all together is far easier than having no base to start with and if Clipsal are serious about owning this market, they really need to get into it!

We all know that life really is like a box of chocolates. You can't stop at one!

Or am I just kidding myself?
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Market penetration

Phoneman,
It would appear obvious its been awhile since you've opened a magazine, gone to your local wholesaler or home improvement centre, turned on the television, or spoken to your local Clipsal Rep.
Clipsal Australia and CIS are doing a huge amount of marketing, campaigning and advertising to, wait for it - the consumer or, dare i say it, decision maker!!!
Granted, in the past marketing to builders, architects, and engineers may not have satisfied all marketing channels, but the direct marketing campaigns now directed at the home owner / consumer is well established.
As an installer, i am often asked by customers "are there other systems around like C-Bus", this to me would indicate the marketing and knowledge are out there, perhaps its up to the installers to make the customer feel comfortable with the technology, and convince them of the value add. All customers are different, it is up to us (as installers) to find out what pushes the clients buttons, rather than criticise the manufacturer. As far as pricing goes, if the customers sees value, the price doesnt matter.

 

Well said Darren, you should get a job a Clipsal...

 

Darrens job

Seems Darrens job a Clipsal may be well and truly filled because he missed my point completely and that seems to be the problem.

CBUS is simply too expensive for most consumers and thus does not make it into their construction budget and once the job is closed, so are the opporunities for CIS.

My suggestion was simply to use the basic bits ie switches and a relay to get into the jobs and the upgrades can come later, that would not only compliment the current marketing activities but provide a future for all.

Lets face it, Windows Academic Version is the introduction most have to the world according to Bill Gates and like old habits, standard wiring is hard to change.

 

C-Bus too expensive!!!

Thanks for the post PSC and Phoneman
Unfortunately phoneman, i dont work for Clipsal, but work for an electrical contracting company servicing the residential, multi-residential, but mainly commercial market. I spend everyday speaking to consultants, architects, building developers and owners about C-Bus, and have for many years as you point out, trying to "sell" the idea of C-Bus to a market which percieves it to be an expensive gimmick.
In the past few years (last 2 in particular), i am seeing a tremendous change in attitude, both residentially and commercially. This, in my opinion is due to hightened consumer awareness,greater flexibility and function, and pleasing design of the 'NEW' Clipsal range of products.
I agree with you completely, that offering an entry level system to customers is a sure way to 'lock' them into the technology, and gives them a system they can be enhanced as finance and technology become available, and provides you as service provider an ongoing revenue oportunity well after the walls are sheeted.
Once again, that is were we (as installers) come in,we need to conduct client assessments, including budget, and design systems that meet the clients expectation and budget. Were it often goes wrong, is when individuals i.e architects provide budget estimates to customers without any true knowledge.
I could'nt tell you how mant times I've seen $3K toilets and $1200.00 per M2 carpet in an installation, but have seen the automation pulled out because it was "too expensive".

 

Display homes might help

I have been visiting a lot of display homes lately, and in the $600K - $1M range you would think houses would have SOME automation fitted. Sad to see, but only one out of ~25 homes we have visited which have been built in Townsville in the past 2 years and priced in this range has any. At least it was C-Bus. In that home, it was installed more as a gimmick than anything else (3 x DLT plus 2 x SL5034BNL, contolling lighting in kitchen, dining, lounge and main bed ONLY, dichroic lights in very flashy ensuite controlled with RELAY output). These homes have many other very expensive tid-bits like $3K range-hoods and $20K counter-tops in the kitchen as darrenblake points out, so there is a lot of potential here.

We have discussed plans with two of the major builders in town, and they are very keen about C-Bus. Why is it not even being presented as an option?

There seems to be a missing link in the marketing chain here, and I reckon it's that bit that is the problem.

Don

 

The best way to convince people of C-Bus is demonstrate it. It is very important to get more demonstration about what a C-Bus "SYSTEM" can achieve, and not sell it short by promoting only one or two of its features. In a showroom situation (or display home) this is ideal, because people can visualise it better.

From what I have seen around Adelaide in building displays, C-Bus seems to be included more on the security system side moreover automation. But not many display homes have either (probably to keep costs down). Maybe some form of sponsorship is the best way to go?. I think also the CIS website really needs to be able to highlight what people have done with it, maybe some "feature" houses. But dont get me started on the website....

To me C-Bus isn't for everyone, and its price point reflects that, but its a system, not just a toy. If you are lowering your price just to sell the thing, its not the way to go, and I think the arguement is flawed in the sense that just getting the building blocks cheap isn't going to make people look at further install / unit costs any better. The system speaks for itself, just need to find some way amplify its voice.

 

Guys our company installs many c-bus domestic installation and I do agree it is expansive. And many people in the domestic market would like to build up their automation system as they go. ( so they don?t get a lump sum bill ) and that?s where x10 is so popular .But I can see the c-bus wireless will fill in that market.
The major cost which stops me installing more c-bus into domestic installation is the switch gears (light switches) is too expansive and usually you use more light switches
then all other components. So i usually talk to the customer and design c-bus where part is hard wired and part c-bus to lower the cost . Example: Rooms like laundry people only want to turn the light on or off and not often. But in dinning room I install dimmer modules to give them flexibility ,scene control and the wow factor.
I wish Clipsal designers would make a hard wired range of light switches that would look alike so we could inter-grade the two systems ( hard wired and c-bus). This would bring in the volume into domestic market and hopefully lower the cost. I also tell my customers to look for automation systems that have a good long time support .An installation is just like a car has to be reliable and at time it need parts. Why do people buy a Holden or a Ford . Because its cost effective, parts are always around and not to costly. If my customers ring me in five years time and have a broken c-bus part I would like to think that Clipsal will have the parts to get it going with out installing a new system .
Well that?s my two cents

 

I am with many here in saying that C-bus is very expensive and a entry level lead in is not a bad idea. If all we want is to see a system like this in the high end of the market then that is really limiting, eveing if it is where the big $$$$ are. Dare I say that if targeted properly there is no reason why c-bus couldn't be in more standard type homes, installed and maintaned by every day sparkies, not just those who have specialised in 'automation' and who are making more money than the knowledge is worth (I mean no real offence to integrators here but C-bus isn't that hard to know and learn if you have a technical apptitude for it)

In my case I installed C-bus in my 12sq home when I built it 5 years ago, but the C-bus was more of an add-on to the Minder system I brought. In my case I live(d) alone and traveled a lot so being able to join security, sprinkler control and lighting control was great. I only have a simple system covering the main parts of my house and it has 2x4 channel dimmers and 1x4 channel relay and standard C2000 switches and 2 PIR's. The thing that stopped me from going further was I hit the point where to add any more I had to start investing in a new power supply, so to do the remaining 8 lights would cost almost the same as the orginal 12. With the modern units today with power supplies it wouldn't be much of an issue.

With price I recently did a comparison and calculated what it would cost to do my house today, using the same basic components. By that I didn't use neo's/saturns/DLT's and with relays and dimmers I just went for the equivilent devices and it turns out the costs would be about double what it cost me 2000. Start adding saturns, DLT's and touch screens and your up for big bikkies and then you add the cost of the installation and it is out of reach of most.

I now have a requirement to add a few more lights in the house in the c-bus area it its going to look like I am up for maybe a good $1000 to do it. Even more if I have to add a new PC interface beacuse many of the new devices cannot be programmed with a minder interface (like the new PIR's). Certainly not good value, so I may just have to bit the bullet and wire them to standard switches.

I can fully understand the costs involved in developing C-bus and the advances it has made over the years are bloody great, however I would have thought the earlier units would have more than paid for their development several times over and come down in price in real terms. So in essence what I am saying is price and bundle the standard offerings to target the lower end of the market. Price and market the DLT's/saturns, touch screens at the higher end of the market. The potential volume in the lower end should cover the costs nicely and hopefuly due to market penetration lead to more sales in the premium market and make more $$$$ for Clipsal.

 

Compared to other lighting control systems Cbus is very cost effective. Everyday sparkies do install & maintain basic Cbus installations, however we find (as a Clipsal System Integrator) these installations are quite often not designed, installed or programmed in a way that gets the most out of the system. This more often than not results in a customer who has heard great things about the product, has high expectations and in the long run it turns into disappointment as they have not got what they had envisaged. Then they blame the product, not the installer.

Those of use who specialise in 'automation' are NOT making more money than we are worth! Like anything you pay for knowledge, you pay peanuts and you get monkeys! Years of training and experience comes at a price, sure you can't go wrong with programming 2 x dimmers, 1 x relay, 2 x pir's and a couple of switches; and hey as you should know it should have only taken you about 1 hour to complete. Maybe you should try your hand at a 350+ device project with 7 networks, using S+ to control all your lighting scenes and logic functions, tied into AMX to give control and feedback as well as high level communications with the security system to monitor the state of the security inputs that S+ logic engine relies on to control the 80+ motorised devices around the house - give it a go, it isn't that hard...

As I see it Cbus is work in progress, there is constant (at times frustratingly slow) development and improvement of the Cbus product range. You only need to ask Duncan or Darren how many changes and improvements are on their lists, I'm sure it runs into the thousands.

I'm not sure if it would be possible for Clipsal to remove features or use cheaper parts to further reduce the cost and create a 'cut down' version of the full product?

However, I would have thought in light of the fact that the Cbus output units now being manufactured in China the prices SHOULD have come down. Surely there must be huge savings in getting these products manufactured offshore?

And as the worldwide use of the product has only increased over the years, the parts buying power becomes greater and this only results in lower prices.

 

I tend to agree with Peter...

When a "normal" electrician designs Cbus installations, they think of it as a replacement for the standard wiring. For example, 1 group of lights per room with 1 switch per group. Perhaps a 3-way in the hallway, that's advanced lighting control as far as many are concerned !

This mentality results in a system that costs more than conventional wiring yet offers absolutely no benefit apart from perhaps nicer looking switches (although let's be truthful here, a LOT of Cbus installs are done because the switches look nice).

It takes a great deal more thought and experience to design a Cbus system that actually adds VALUE to a site. And only by adding value (perceived or real) will the client accept the higher cost of a control system.

The danger with having "entry-level" products targetted at "entry-level" installers is that it will tend to result in a multitude of poorly designed and implimented projects, and the spreading of bad publicity for the product (as Peter said, unhappy client blames product not installer)

I was thinking about this today as I drove back from our most recent project - I was there for 3 hours adding some extra DLTs and tidying up a few things and felt a bit guilty at charging for my time... but then I realised that even if we charged at $200 per hour it's still absolutely NOTHING in the overall scale of things on that particular house. And mind you, this is a house in outer western Sydney, not really a "posh" suburb...

My 2c - JC

 

Entry level product

I can't remember the last time we had a faulty product out of the box and we install a lot of gear.

IF Clipsal did make a 'cheaper' version of the Cbus product would you still expect the product to be as reliable as it currently is?

Would you complain about faulty product? or having to get the product repaired or replaced? Would you carry extra stock to replace the faulty equipment for the client whilst it is being repaired at Clipsal?

Because I know the times when Clipsal have had quality control problems the backlash that they received was incredible and very damaging for the company.

So I guess you need to ask yourself the question - Is it quality you're after or is it price?

Because you can't have it both ways...

 

I Think you may have missed the point completly. The talk was about entry level not the complex system you wre describing at the end. For entry level it is dead easy and that was the point I was trying to make, yet there is a common missconception that C-bus and similar automation systems are black magic to only be done by highly trained integrators. I say market the product, at the entry level to the every day sparkie and do that properly and leave the high end of the market to those whith the skill and training to do it properly.

When I started dabling 5 years ago the devices were relativly simple, yet if you were to read the warning labels on the products and listen to the Clipsal speal you needed a PHD in C-bus to install the thing. Agreeded that you need specialised integration skills for the big and complex stuff, but again the talk in this thread was entry level and what I have is indeed that. There is a massivie difference. I have no doubt you would agree that paying a highly trained specialst to do a job that is dead easy and would take an hour or two to is a waste. This means that you are either undercharging for your knowledge or if you were to charge what you would be really worth overhcarging the customer. Either situation isn't good, so take away the belief that C-bus (in its entry level form) is highly specialised and hand that end of the market more to the every day sparkie.

I work in a data comms world and we have issues of a similar thing to what I think about integrators. The work we do is entry level and simple, install the gear connect the customers and basic fault finding. We have Microsoft and Cisco gurus and we pay a mint for them (and they are worth every $$), yet when we advertise for workers we get all these people with the Microsoft and Cisco qualifications aplying and trying to charge accordingly when all we want is a generalised technical worker. A side point though is people get these qulaifications and think they know something, when really they know nothing, the must learn that on the job.

On the subject of training and the like I had a similar issue when I installed Minder. Back then you couldn't buy the software to program it like you could with C-bus and there were certainly no manuals available to buy or on-line. "You had to do a course", says Clipsal, well a quick call to my local consumer affairs resulted in an email from Clipsal containing all the required disks to program and it was for free (I would have happily paid though). The point being there was an 'club' mentality which still to an extent exists today which artificialy up prices C-bus installs.

Again the point has been missed. Many of the products, especially at the entry level have been developed and their development costs should have been more than covered. Sure C-bus is a work in progress and I think Clipsal does a great job, but thats not to say you need to throw the old stuff out because there is new and (more expensive) kit out there. One that comes to mind is when Clipsal went C-bus 2, at that point a lot of the old stuff was discontinued. I understand that customers may want the new and improved stuff but if you have a product that has been developed, is stable and works why get rid of it. This is the kind of product that could be marketed at the entry level to bring the overall costs down.

You talk in a later post about bring the costs down by making it inferior. I don't agree you need to do that. I have no doubt teh CIS people would agree, (if they could on this forum) that the real costs involved in C-bus equipment is the devlopement. That is why a colour touch screen is the price it is, it sure the hell isn't the price of the components alone. Same goes for all the products. I have no doubt that when CIS develop something and come up with a price is it based on cost recovery by selling x number of boxes over x number of years. Once they have both been passed then the kit has paid for itself. Why not then mark that product down in price to a level to get people in so you have a better chance of selling the latest and greatest?

 

Cost

I think the discussion on the cost of C-Bus is getting a little old.
My final two bobs worth - If you dont see a market in specifying, designing, supplying, installing and servicing C-Bus, then dont. If you're looking to make a few quick dollars, think again, it takes commitment to be involved in any technology.
There are more than enough pro-active individuals who have the skills and initiative to not only actively promote the product, but also sell themselves as an individual.
I think the issue here is, not the cost of the hardware, but perhaps the limited margins many believe are achievable through selling C-Bus.
At the end of the day, not everyone can afford to buy a BMW, so they wont -Simple as that!!!!!

 

Some great discussion- point is

The follow up to my repost of my original post has been great. Some however got lost in their own views and missed the point I believe we all should be making.

Home Automation is not the high end product it once was but you do and should pay for quality. If you read my original post it doesn't haggle for pricing on the fun stuff, just on a simple, fixed price entry pack.

We all know that once a job is closed, CBUS is either installed or it probably never will be and that becomes another opportunity lost to Clipsal and every Integrator out there.

If we consider the argument given by 'COST'. Whilst BMW does make a 760li at $335k with all the bells and whistles, it does also offer the 118 at $34k and that is how they get average people into the BMW aspirational market.

I repeat my suggestion therefore that if Clipsal were to offer a basic home pack including the following, (nothing more, nothing less);

1 x L5512 12 Channel Relay
12 x C5031NL Standard Switch Input units
1 x Surface mounted Enclosure

Hell it could even have some prewritten software (ie, push button 1 light 1 goes on, button2-light2, B3L3 etc).

Don't scream integrators, whilst anyone can change their own oil filter and spark plugs, few actually do and that is where you would come in.

Even if Clipsal had to sell the entry pack at cost or heaven forbid subsidise it a bit, they could open up an enormous market that will set everyone staying loyal to the cause up for the future, otherwise X10 and its derivatives get a free ride.

 

Phoneman,

If you think that the proposed pack should include the above product you are DREAMING!

That's NOT what automation is about, relay channels and 1 key switches??? It has NO intelligence, no automation, no dimming capacity - why install it?

The other problem with your proposed pack is 1 x 12 relay does not have a big enough power supply for 12 input units - so do we reduce the number of switches to 10? Or add a power supply?

Is the enclosure just 12 pole or is it larger? What happens if you want to add to more output units?

Last time I checked nearly all houses are different, and with every job I've ever worked on the lighting configuration revolves around the design of the house - not the house around the lighting configuration.

I don't see how Clipsal can put a pack together that meets everyone?s basic requirements. It's not like a security system pack where you need a panel, power supply, keypad and a battery.

As I have stated in an earlier post the only hope for reducing the cost of the product is to have the product manufactured off-shore at a lower cost - which is what they are doing. Is this a good thing? Is it costing Australian jobs? Are we going to see a reduction in price? Who knows???

I don't understand your point about the pre-written software? Toolkit is free, and Cbus has push to learn technology...

X10 is DEAD! Who uses X10? Phoneman how many X10 installations have you done? Was the system reliable? Was the customer pleased with the result? Did it offer the same flexibility as Cbus? What kind of backup and support did you receive? Would you recommend it?


The worldwide market for Cbus is already enormous, if the state of California alone has 15,000,000+ more people than Australia; where would you focus your time and money? On sub $1000 Cbus packs for Australia or $10,000+ installations in a potential market of 300,000,000? I know where my money would be.

I hope I haven't missed any points

 

Entry level

I would have thought that seeing as though ALL CIS products are sold individually, that it was pretty easy to "create" an entry level system for your client.
So the question is, do you want an entry level pack, or do you want Clipsal to sell a pre-packaged pack at a reduced pack price?????? So once again it comes back to the COST, not the fact that there is no entry level pack.

So , in order to satisfy those who dont like to order C-Bus in bits, i have created my own entry level pack for sale. Here it is:
1 x L5512RVF - $865
1 x 5031NL - $63.75
1 x 4CS24FD - $135.00

I will gladly sell it to you for $1065.00

6 channel dimmer????, what page of the Clipsal trade products guide is that on???. Might have a use for a couple of those!!!!!!!

Pre written software, you have to be dreaming, and what's wrong with using learn mode on those basic entry level packs anyway????

ASHLEYW, you talk about the C-BUS "CLUB", and that C-BUS is promoted as an Integrator only product, i guess thats why any one can walk in off the street and buy ALL CIS products over the counter at there local electrical wholesaler. That equates to god knows how many wholesalers, and 10's of thousands of electrical contractors. Try booking into a C-Bus training course, across the country their booked solid till July, must be a lot of integrators out there - NOT!!!!
You also talk of having Microsoft and Cisco engineers as part of you organisation, one would assume you use this to your advantage to create a point of difference for your organisation when tendering work. Why would C-Bus integrators, with the expertise and training (yes we do have some qualifications) be able to use this to promote our service offerings and create a point of difference???
The company i work for has close to 500 cabling installers, all of them can install electrical and data, but only a handful can program C-Bus.
You also mention that once a product has "PAID" for itself the price should drop. So when Clipsal bring out a new product i.e colour touchscreen, it should pay for its development cost itself. I would think that would make the unit extremely expensive, compared to its list price today. I can go and upsell a 3K screen, but not a 10K screen. This model you propose would limit the number of new products we see, because if Clipsal cant garantee a return on their investment, they wont develop it.
It takes money to develop new products, AND LOTS OF IT.

 

I think you have missed the point yet again. Yes C-bus is available in the local TLE, L&H etc, it is even available in my local lightling shop, but its not as if the every day person is going to go and buy it. Go to new home display villages and see how many show case C-bus and other like systems. A customer would have to see it somewhere to even think about it, many people out there would have no idea that a product like this exisited, but I would think most would run a mile when they found out the costs.

As for the Cisco and Microsoft people where I work again the point was missed on you. We employ them because we need them for their skill knowledge and experiance. For the low end work we employ people without those specific and very costly skills. Same too in the integration world. Pay people like you who are clearly very experianced and highly trained to do the high end of the market but create and promote the lower end of the market to a wider range of people. You give an example of selling $10,000+ systems to the US and not worrying about $1000- systems here. Pray tell why can you not have both. The products are the same, its just the the $10,000+ systems have a lot more bells and whistles.

Lastley on the product development costs you have yet again missed my point complety. Are you saying that CIS develops C-bus at a loss? I don't think so. They no doubt make it so that the products pay for themselves over a given time frame and if the product couldn't do that they wouldn't make it. That is the reason why the products are expensive and rightly so. There might be a few exceptions of products that need to be made at a loss to enable another to run at a profit but there wouldn't be many.

I made the statement that I know that develpment of C-bus takes a lot of money and that is why some products are very expensive. But by the same token once the development costs have been recovered why not revert to a lower and realistic pricing. As is the case with c-bus this could be the 'low' end that a few in this thread have been asking for, without the need to send ofshore. You only need to look at key input units. 4-5 years ago there were only really standard types (2000, C2000 etc) but now we have Saturn and Neo. You cannot tell me that the old stuff hasn't paid for its development costs, nor can you tell me that a Saturn isn't as high a price as it is but for the development costs.

With the touch screen are you saying the real price taking into acount development should be $10k? How do you come at that? If a screen really does cost that and is being sold for $3k its no wonder the other products are expensive. I would have thought clipsal would have set the cost recovery on a far greater number of units to keep a lower cost.

This is something where I do have some experiance. We have recently went to tender on a specialised desktop soultion for my organisation (and BTW I work for a Government Department in Comms). The company that made our orginal units 4 years ago tendederd a price around 50% lower then the new companies that tendered this time. The price for the new product is around 40% lower than the orginal product too. The reason is very simple. When we first ordered 4 years ago the company had to invest time and money in making the product and this was reflected in the price. The new kit is a slight variation without the full development costs again so they are now giving us, the customer the benifit. The other companies who tendered this time didn't have the benifit so their price reflected full development costs. So why can CIS not do the same with the products they have that have reached development maturity and have paid for their orginal develpment costs. Why not a price of cost of manufacture + marketing + profit? It would be lower than it is today for say a 2000 series 4 key input unit?

Now just so we are clear what I am saying is simple. C-bus is a mature system. Offer an entry base system to the low end of the market to get people into it. It doesn't have to be a full on home automation system, in fact if you look at the c-bus logo you will see it is sold as a energy management system and not automation. That functionality is really only now (and the over the past 2 years) being added, in the past it was Minder that created the real automation functions. Market it at the entry level and leave the market for the high end stuff open to specialised guys such as you. The market can only benifit by having it so widly accepted which can only benifit everyone, you (and other integrators), the customer and of course Clipsal.

 

Could not help my self