Optimising new product development
- The challengesRead more
The increasingly globalised marketplace has raised the stakes for innovation based companies. Organisations need to not only develop new and innovative products, but they need to be able to bring them to market faster and deliver greater return from their innovation portfolios. Despite having mature processes in place, organisations are struggling to deliver the desired performance due to challenges such as:
- Ensuring sufficient innovation opportunities at the front end of the lifecycle
- Identifying and terminating poor initiatives early in the lifecycle (tunnel not funnel)
- Suboptimal governance and controls - too little governance around risky initiatives and too much around simple ones
- Our approachRead more
Our approach is based on three key elements:
- A new product development lifecycle
- Scalable levels of governance and control
- A portfolio approach at product category level
The new product development lifecycle consists of a series of sequential stages separated by decision gates. At each gate a designated committee representing appropriate parts of the organisation and the customer recommend that a product development initiative should move forward, should return for rework, be delayed or should stop based on a pre-defined set of themed criteria and evidenced by supporting deliverables.
The level of control on a new product development initiative should be appropriate to the level of innovation complexity. A brand new technology launched in new markets for example should have the highest levels of control, simple market extensions however require less. The level of control required is determined by a complexity tool which recommends the decision gates/ criteria which are not required for the specific initiative
In addition, a portfolio approach is required to ensure that all the innovations in a particular product category are being traded off against one another. There may be little point in investing further in a mediocre product when there are two potential stars in the same category.
All processes are only as good as the effectiveness of their application. Our consultants, therefore, work with our clients to ensure the approach is fit for purpose, effective and fully embedded into new ways of working so that they deliver measurable benefits.
- Proof of what we can doRead more
- Our servicesRead more
