Product Development

This is my general approach to product development:

1. Determine the business strategy to be addressed by the new product development. Growth? Cost savings? Fighting off a competitor?  Short term vs long term?
2. Capture market insights which support your strategy, collate data, analyze it, what it is telling you?
3. Brainstorm ideas that may achieve this - use different techniques, different environments, get people outside your organization to assist. Think short term and long term. Don't be constrained with your thoughts (that happens later).
4. Develop a criteria matrix to filter out the good ideas from the bad.  This is the hard part.  This requires consideration of your Strategy.  You need to ask questions such as: How quickly does this need to be executed? WHat is my budget? What are the needs of my customers?
5. Quickly find your top 10 or 20 ideas that 'could' deliver on the strategy using this criteria.
6. For each of these ideas, create an Idea Summary.  This should cover such topics as: What needs is being met? Who are my competitors? What is the business model? What are the risks?  This is not a business case, but it will form the basis.
7. Get smart people from different backgrounds to assess these Ideas.  Present the idea to them, getting there feedback.
8. Based on the feedback, make a decision whether to go forward with one or more of the ideas....now is the time to kill ideas, you may even have to go back to Step 2.
9. Research more and build the business case...Ask questions such as what is my pricing model? How am I going to sell this? What costs will I incur?  Do I need capital? Will consumers actually buy this?
10. Present a summary of the Business Case to some more smart people from different backgrounds...again make a go/no go decision here.
11. Raise money (if you need it)
12. Start building the product...in some instances you may have to build a a prototype and test it with consumers.
13. Go/no go decisions can be made at any time.  Keep in mind, much of the costs come in marketing, selling and operations.
14. Launch the product

As you can see this is serious process...it can be as long or as short as you like. I have the tools, experience, resources and partners to assist you with it.  Contact me if you would like to know more.

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Are you are interested in the type of work I do?
•    Sales and Business Development
•    E-business, E-marketing and Internet strategy
•    Marketing
•    Business Analysis
•    Project Management

Are you interested in the work I have done for other companies?
•    Service Central (Sales, Support & Marketing)
•    Sensis (e-business strategy, product development)
•    Inmatrix (product dev., project management)
•    Icewrx (you name it)
•    Eclipse (e-business, e-marketing strategy)
•    Price Waterhouse Coopers (tax & business consultant)

Perhaps you just want to contact me to see how I may be able to help your business?