Jucy's Tristin King on ugly choices, being more like Apple

Speaking at Intergen Dynamics Day 2016, Jucy Group head of technology Tristin King talked about choice. 

King says there are two types of choice. The big ones are all about desire and by need.

He says: "The other type of choice is an ugly choice, it's a burden to most of us much of the time. These are small choices and they are often really hard. They are hard because they are driven by logic, by risk and the fear of missing out — even if it is only a minor thing". 

We make a lot of these choices. King refers to a Cornell University report which says we each make about 200 choices about food each day.

These take up a lot of time. Another study looked at more important decisions. It says adults make 27 judgements every day and we might spend as long as nine minutes making each judgement. 

King says: "That's four hours a day we spend making choices."

When it comes to buying a new phone, we can be overwhelmed by choice. Even once you've decided on a brand there are more choices to make. There are technical matters such as camera, screen resolution and so on. Then there are decisions about where is the best place to buy a phone. This can take hours.

Then many of us go through the same process when it is time to update the phone. King says: "We get in this loop of decision-making. We worry about which is the best phone and about whether we get the choice wrong.

But for a bunch of people there is no choice. They are going to buy an iPhone. King says Apple is now the world's biggest company and makes a great margin, He the most amazing aspect of this is that Apple has just a nine per cent market share but 73 per cent of phone profits.

He says they did this because they removed choice. "Apple understood what people's desires were and what they need from a device".

On one level King's comments on choice seem remote from enterprise technology. But it is easy to lose sight of why companies are willing to spend large sums on powerful systems and analytical tools.

King says Jucy uses tools like Microsoft Power BI to understand how and why customers make choices, then remove the painful choices and help them to enjoy memorable experiences.