Why Do Product Strategy & Concept Innovation?

• You want a new, online product to sell. It is an application, information, or both. It may also include various communication functions, either interpersonal or intragroup. It may be available on your website, company network, or other means. Customers may run it on mobile or non-mobile devices.
• You do not have an effective, efficient methodology & process for product innovation.
• You believe there is an important opportunity for your business in using emerging technologies such as
  1. Smart mobile phones & hand-helds
  2. Rich Internet Applications (RIA)
  3. Social networking
  4. GIS-based maps with superimposed, dynamic information
  5. Convergent media (e.g., VoIP, text-to-speech, and speech-to-text)
  6. Cameras with dynamic-information overlays (also known as “Augmented Reality”)
• You want a more nimble and quick process than you can do in-house.
• You want a quality product, not a quick-and-dirty one just for the sake of speed.
• You want to have a variety of innovative product-concepts to choose from.
• You want the product to take full advantage of what the latest technology offers.
• You want it to make full use of the state-of-the-art in information and communication models and techniques—especially in its communication functionality and user interfaces.
• You need clear information about customer aims that the proposed products would address, how easily & effectively customers could achieve them, & the benefits customers would realize.
• You need to know how marketable, sellable, and competitive each product would be.
• You need reliable estimates of the practicality of developing each proposed product: costs, time, technical feasibility, and risks.
• You need reliable estimates of the ongoing costs of marketing, selling, & supporting each product.
• You need accurate forecasts of each proposed product’s sales, market share, effect on sales of other company products, and effect on the company’s reputation.
• You want to make a well-informed decision, based on ROI to the company, about whether developing any of the proposed products is worth going after right now, should be postponed, or should be abandoned as impractical.
• Before undertaking such a project, you want to make sure the concept, categories of potential customers, the selected customer aims to address, benefits to customers, other key characteristics of the product, and quantifications of the amount of direct and indirect benefits, costs, value (ROI), and likelihood of success are clearly and specifically defined. These will serve as the overall business-objectives for the project.
• You want to be able to set a realistic, appropriate, accurate budget for the project.

Methodology

• Work with company personnel to define the opportunity clearly & accurately.
  1. Identify the product’s potential customers.
  2. Research their aims to see which the product could address.
  3. Evaluate their alternatives to accomplish these aims.
  4. Consider which aims the company is willing & able to address.
  5. Select which aims the product should try to meet.
• Invent a number of innovative product-concepts, taking full advantage of emerging technologies, such as the following:
  1. Smart mobile phones & hand-helds
  2. Rich Internet Applications (RIA)
  3. Social networking
  4. GIS-based maps with superimposed, dynamic information
  5. Convergent media (e.g., VoIP, text-to-speech, and speech-to-text)
  6. Cameras with dynamic-information overlays (also known as “Augmented Reality”)
• For each product-concept
  1. Provide mockups & descriptions.
  2. Show how it helps customers achieve their aims easily & effectively, & their benefits.
  3. Assess its competition & other alternatives to determine its competitive advantages.
  4. Look ahead to future competition: barriers to entry & likelihood of being superceded.
  5. Demonstrate marketability by showing how easy it will be to communicate its customers’ aims, how it satisfies them, benefits, & competitive advantages.
  6. Demonstrate sellability by showing its quality, customers it appeals to, & pricing.
  7. Evaluate its practicality: costs, time, technical feasibility, & risks of developing, marketing, selling, & supporting it. Include buy vs. build choices.
  8. Estimate its sales, revenues, market share, & effect on company reputation & sales of its other products.
• Provide decision-analysis & support to help the company
  1. Evaluate these concepts & choose the one with the highest value (benefits divided by costs) to the company, considering direct & indirect business benefits, practicality, competitive advantages, marketability, sellability, and benefits to customers.
  2. Decide whether the product is worth developing right now, should be postponed, or should be abandoned as impractical.
  3. Clearly define overall business-objectives & success criteria for the product-development project.

Benefits of This Approach

1. Choose from a range of innovative product-concepts the one that will
   1. Produce the best value for the company (benefits divided by costs).
      1. Benefits: sales, market share, effect on company reputation & sales of other company products.
      2. Costs: developing, marketing, selling, & supporting the product.
   2. Satisfy the most customers by helping them achieve their aims easily & effectively.
   3. Capitalize on opportunities competitors have missed to help customers achieve aims.
   4. Stand up to future competition.
   5. Be easy to market successfully.
   6. Be easy to sell successfully.
   7. Be practical to develop, taking advantage of both build and buy options.
   8. Take full advantage of latest technology.
   9. Take full advantage of state-of-the-art in information & communication techniques.
2. Preserve your freedom and perspective to choose the best concept, before getting down into the details of the design where you may lose sight of the forest for the trees. This avoids doing premature design work.
3. Make a well-informed decision on whether to develop a new product at all right now.
4. Maximize ROI and minimize costs & risks from the design & development projects.
5. Get information needed to set a realistic, appropriate budget.
6. Receive a detailed list of categories of customers, their aims, benefits, key product-characteristics, direct & indirect benefits, costs, value (ROI), and likelihood of success.
   1. These serve as the overall business-objectives for the product-development project and help ensure that your product accomplishes its real business purposes.
   2. They also provide essential guidance to the conceptual designer, so the next step (Informational and Functional Blueprint) can be performed efficiently and successfully.
7. Obtain staff support and take advantage of company expertise through a highly collaborative process.

Read my Case Study for a New Product.

Read my Case Study for an Enhanced Product.