Bundling and unbundling services effectively is a key business strategy. While bundling groups things together, unbundling separates them. With these two strategies, companies can remodel their services to remain competitive in their field. The market is constantly changing, as the needs of clients. By Bundling and Unbundling services you can adapt more easily and more efficiently.
Bundling and Unbundling: what are they?
Bundling means grouping things together; putting together in a single offer diverse products and services that are connected and often complementary. A simple example: a smartphone sold together with an airtime plan constitutes a Bundle. Usually in this case the leverage is the price as the package is sold at a lower cost than the two separate individual components. Leverage can also be found in the ‘laziness’ of the customer, who hopes to find everything neatly packaged in one place, making the whole purchasing process fast and low effort.
Unbundling, on the other hand, means to separate or break down components that made up an offer in order to respond to the needs of individual clients. In the music industry, the possibility to unbundle an album and sell singles was a revolution. Anyone can buy their favourite song without needing to buy the whole album.
Both strategies allow companies to review their offers. This all happens without needing to create new products and services by simply combining them in different ways using a few tricks.
Bundling and Unbundling services in the digital era
Before the advent of the digital age, the Bundle was the go-to choice. The idea was to create a package that suited most people, at an advantageous price. Today, needs have changed and the objective is to communicate with smaller groups of clients, with the niche market, and to do so in a way that is punctual with its response and meets the needs of the clients. The pandemic accelerated this trend further and it opened our eyes to the possibilities of finding infinite new solutions.
Think about how our predisposition toward events, such as trade shows and fairs, has changed. Before Covid, we went to fairs in order to discover something new, to listen to professionals speak, for networking and public relations. For a period of time, this all became impossible and so a new format had to be thought up, and quickly, to ensure survival.
And so, unbundling was the answer, transforming general events into something that responded more directly to an individual’s need. Even though they are happening in person again, online participation has become a new norm (even if it can be a little tiresome at times). For anyone not wanting to spend time and money on travelling to multiple locations, but still wanting the buzz and opportunities of participating in an event, they can do so from the comfort of their own homes. And thanks to the improvements made with live messaging between all attendees, as well as via social media platforms, there is a sense of community that has a global reach without much effort.
Unbundling, Bundling and Rebundling Services
Once we have unbundled an offer, we can rebundle it with other services that we offer, but in a new, transformed and more personalised way.
To illustrate this, let’s take the example of digital formation. Let’s say, hypothetically, that we have created a 6 month long training course that teaches the user how to develop a rounded online business. To create this bundle, we started by creating a selection of courses which touch on different themes. These include, how to use social media, email marketing, personal branding, and legal and fiscal areas. But there is more: this offer becomes more interesting as it includes face-to-face lessons with teachers. You can delve deeper into subjects with these teachers in real time as well as being able to network during lessons with others in the group and after in ‘extra-curricular’ meetings. All this will work to boost visits to your site and engagement with your content from these new contacts.
Our proposal is already niche, it could be perfect and of great value for some but less so for others.
How do we respond to the needs of those who are not able to take part in our live lessons due to other commitments? Or for those who want to deepen their knowledge of just one particular topic because they are well versed in all the other aspects? And for someone who doesn’t have 6 months available to complete the course but would like something a bit more superficial? If we don’t want to lose the opportunity these potential customers present, the solution in this case is to unbundle the original offer and allow people to take the portions that they want. We can make available the roster of online courses, which can be purchased individually and conducted independently on the platform. Then we can create a Facebook group made especially for facilitating discussion and networking.
Now that we have unbundled, we can also re-package, in a new way.
For example, offering packages of courses divided by topic, such as a “social” package containing a courses on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, or an “email marketing” package with the courses on Mailchimp and copywriting. And so on, until all the needs of our audience are answered. Of course, each package should cost less than the individual courses sold separately.
In the period of great change we are experiencing, unbundling is an opportunity to be seized. It makes it possible to find new audiences as you can find more underserved market segments. Does it still make sense to create a bundle? Yes, when the bundle of services takes on greater value in the eyes of the customers than as separate individual services. Consequently, it is good to pay close attention to the services we bundle because the value of our offering will depend on the combinations! Let’s try to ask ourselves: why should my target customer prefer my bundled offering rather than the separate individual products/services? What do they get more? Is the perceived value worth the choice?
