Don’t develop products

– develop business

On average, companies have a success rate of no more than 30% when developing new products. The number has been steady over the years and across industries, representing an incredible waste. Think of all the time spent on developing features that no one wants. Think about the irritation the product imposes on customers. 

Rethink the stage-gate model

We believe that the low success rate of new products primarily stems from a fundamental shortcoming in the way companies typically develop products. Often, the process is divided into one team being responsible for market strategy, another team for customer need and early concept, a third team for detailed design, a fourth team for supply chain and a fifth team for persuading customers to buy it.

The result is that no one has an end-to-end responsibility to develop the business, and this leads to an incredibly slow and bureaucratic process in which the real customer need is forgotten or distorted until it is unrecognisable.

But what can we do to change the way we develop products? Our solution is that you tweak your current stage-gate model to develop business – not just products. But to do this, you must build a new kind of funding, gate criteria and team structure.

At our event in February, we would like to take a deep dive into the challenges and propose actions that can drive you towards business focused development.

Is the morning meeting for you?

Do you work as a leader or have the responsibility for achieving success in research and development, product management, innovation or business development? Then this event is for you.

Join like-minded souls on 5 February 2020 where you will be presented with case studies of both success and failure. You will hear more about how you can spot early indicators of product ideas that will fail and learn about a new way of working that gets only proven value to customers. Also, we will discuss ways of how you can inspire your teams and colleagues to drive positive improvements within your development system.