NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: Clearing Up The FUZZY Front End... The PIC Exercise

New Product Development “PIC” Exercise

Successful companies translate their corporate strategy into a strategic policy for common vision before initiating the NPD process.

(PIC) Product Innovation Chart:

A 1-2 page document that gets everyone in the organization on the same page (finance, sales, engineering, production, reception). The PIC includes, at a high level;

1. Back ground of product line
2. Customers
3. Market places
4. Core competencies
5. How to make and sustain product advantage
6. Product goals and objectives
7. Tactical approach to market place


The PIC accelerates critical discussions between Engineering and Marketing. It's not difficult to do and takes about 1-2 hours to complete. It is simplistic yet powerful!

Brought to you by Dennis Paris of Tangerine Strategies, LLC
Please share your experiences with dennisparis@tangerinestrategies.com

Business Strategy and Planning: What's at risk?

Businesses that operate solely on near term customer perspectives versus a forward looking, market based strategy, carry considerable risk to future growth, particularly due to the shifting economy, and changes in your market's value perceptions. Unlike in the past, current market instability requires more than relying on your sales rep "bagging" the next project, in effect, to save the day...or the next couple of months.

What amazes me is how often business owners and CEOs admit to not having a long or even a short term business plan. And of the business plans that do exist, many do not consider future growth scenarios and projections. They mostly emphasize the obvious, including near term sales projections and not much more.

A forward looking business plan and strategy is crucial to laying the foundation for perspectives and actions that lead to sustainability and future growth. Furthermore, a forward looking plan often results in near term incremental growth, mainly because of new actions taken to support your future plan. For example, product or service market repositioning and expansion, or something as innocuous as recharging your management and staff with a "believable vision" based on solid planning. Future growth planning also positively impacts near term profitability through a review of activity based costing, and the crafting of a new product or service commercialization plan, will typically generate "new" customer interest during market assessments that coincide with an appropriate process for the planning of your new products. Moreover, the surprise to many companies is that, this new customer interest develops around "existing products", as well as with your new impending products and services. In many ways, forward looking planning becomes a super food to the health of your business!

The bottom line is that now more than ever, business strategy, planning and of course execution are critical elements to your business' sustainability and future growth. End of story...Dropping the Microphone!

Dennis Paris

Innovation/New Product Development Case Study

One of Tangerine Strategies' case studies that has gotten quite a bit of attention is about a Military Contract Manufacturer that engaged our Innovation/New Product Development Services. What is striking about this case study is that, like so many small to mid-sized companies, attempts to develop and commercialize new products result in an extraordinarily high failure rate or, do not achieve expected returns on investment.

Ehmke Manufacturing Inc. did attempt twice to commercialize new products without a structured process and on the 3rd attempt, they engaged our expertise to install a custom process, coach the senior team, help U.S. Special Ops military personnel with transitioning to a product manager role, and then assist with all aspects of planning and commercialization. Since the writing of this case study, Ehmke has hired additional personnel to support this growing business unit.

Read more at:  Ehmke Manufacturing, Inc. Case Study

Visit Ehmke's new business unit on line to understand more about the product line addressed in the case study at:
http://www.highgroundgear.com/

Problems We Solve for Clients

• Business Is Slowing Down or Declining


• Business Is Struggling To Get To The Next Level


• Current Marketing Practices Are Ineffective Or Questionable


• There Is Speculation About The Success Of A New Product Or Service Launch Without A Foundational Strategy


• Confusion About How To Test, Best Position Or Enter The Market With A Newly Invented Product.

Copyright © Dennis Paris, 2016

What executives struggling with execution should learn from the Presidential election!

AN INSIGHTFUL PARALLEL TO A PAST PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. A GEM OF A BLOG-ARTICLE AND A MUST READ FOR ALL BUSINESS EXECUTIVES!

Written by Elliot Schreiber, Ph.D., one of the world's most knowledgeable and insightful business and market strategists.

The related BLOG will provide you with a thought provoking topic and is meant to stimulate fresh thinking about your business' strategy. This information might make a few recipients, out of thousands reading this blog, just a little uncomfortable. Actually, that is exactly its intent! This BLOG is meant to convey some fresh thinking that can without question, help to make your business more successful.

PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE BLOG-ARTICLE ON THIS TOPIC BY CLICKING ON:
"What Executives Struggling With Execution Should Learn From The Presidential Election."
or cut and past the following into your URL address window: http://schreiberbartgroup.com/article-details.php?id=108#.UJ186GnBI34

TIP: When you read this BLOG, think about both your entire business (as a CXO or Owner), as well as your own department (if you have departmental responsibile).  Feel free to let me know your thoughts after reading this article!

Best wishes,

Dennis  

Dennis Paris
Tangerine Strategies, LLC
dennisparis@tangerinestrategies.com

What does Failure and a Business Growth Strategy have in common?

... POOR EXECUTION.

Through out my 30 years in business, either on the consulting or on the client side, or in small or even large businesses, how STRATEGY EXECUTION is handled has been one of the top causes of failure. Notice that I did not say "strategy failure".

Ironically, or maybe I should say understandably, the blame is almost always placed on the strategy, where in most cases, the strategy is sound. So we have 3 issues here, a.) what can go wrong with execution, b.) why is the strategy usually the blame and c.) how to assure good strategy execution?

What can, and almost always goes wrong with execution is that while all of the focus is on building perceived value (PV) in the customer market, generating simultaneous PV among the company's employees and its investors (bank, private and/or shareholders) is completely neglected. The results include;

• Internal tension between support groups, particularly between Sales and Operations.
• Disconnects on what the strategy is between executive management, middle management and staff.
• Confusion in the market over the company's evolving position, including a disconnect between its promises and, level of responsiveness by support resources.
• A decline in profitability.
• Misalignment between how investors or the board, view the company's direction and that of senior management.

These are only a few examples of the myriad of issues that can arise when execution does not have a plan of its own and, IT IS NOT IMPLEMENTED ACROSS ALL 3 TARGET AUDIENCES! I use the term "target audience" because of the importance of understanding that once we develop, through a meticulous plan of execution, perceived value among all 3 groups, everyone is on the same page. What results are enthusiastic and unsolicited levels of internal problem solving, planing and management of operational efficiencies, customer support and sales-enabling financial oversight. And the effort of all support functions become synergistic. This occurs when (a) everyone clearly understands the strategy and (b) they have translated their own perceptions of the strategy's value to their personal wealth, the wealth of their company and/or their investment in the company.

Once, through proper execution, PV is intentionally developed among the company's investors, management teams, employees and customer markets, something almost magical occurs; efficiencies increase, costs decline, profit goes up, quality goes up, responsiveness increases and the value of your product or service rises. This translates to the movement of your product or services' value, closer to the "price ceiling" in the market place. Simply put, the market will pay more for your product.

This unified synergy is seldom experienced by companies who's strategies have been blamed as the reason for failure. And why not blame strategy? Because the profound effect of (integrated) PV across customers, staff and investors is simply not understood, and rarely experienced! It is easier to blame the strategy when in fact, without effective (connected) execution, a good strategy never had a chance.

So, to assure good strategy execution, a company must factor into the post strategy development timeline, an execution plan that includes not only staff or department readiness, but how to generate a realistic level of perceived value, and what behavior this PV is expected to generate! Not much different than sales and market tactics that target specific customer and market-wide behaviors, a similar plan and tactics executions are required to knit together, a strategy execution engine that will optimize success.

Have you experienced a winning execution plan that led to strategy success? Please share your story or thoughts!

I also want to give credit for the conceptual application of (PV) Perceived Value to Dr. Elliot Schreiber, past Professor of Marketing and Strategy at the LeBow College of Business at Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA. Dr. Schreiber was also the past Chair of the Schreiber-Bart Group, a strategy execution consulting company.

Is Budgeting Destructive? - Real Life Example

Flashback:  You can sense the tension in the board room as 3 of my Product Marketing LOB (line of business) management peers enter the darkened board room, only lit by the presentation screen, filled with Executive VPs and the CEO. All 4 LOB managers must accomplish 3 things, 1) present YTD budget results, successes, failures, causes, lessons learned, impact on business and financials and 2) present the best way for the remainder of the year's budget to be applied so as to optimize business objectives and, 3) propose the next year's budget requirements for their respective LOB's with enough external market trend data, internal sales projections and financial sensibility to just hope, that they appear to know what they are talking about. One by one, we each present, 60 - 90 minutes in length during which time we receive, absorb, deflect or down right choke on questions dished by the corporate governing body. Questioning is aggressive in a "take no prisoners" style. The body heat in the room noticeably rises with each presentation. We all know what's on the line. Some of us will be winners and receive what we asked for. Others will be loosers and not receive even what was approved in the current year and someone could be (and one was) terminated for presenting flawed data. That's a 25% mortality rate, which is pretty high.


The fact is, that we (each of 4 LOB managers) logged in on average 50+% of our time for 2 - 3 months of preparation for this annual blood bath, and about 10% - 15% of each week (or approximately 240 hours) during the remainder of the year was dedicated to budget analysis and reporting. In fact, all of our year-long actions and programs were enabled solely by the budgeting and approval process. Performance against budget remained central to our individual reviews. Bonuses were measured against revenue and budget management. The thick of politics constantly revolved around the budget. It was a never ending cycle...

An Executive MBA graduate school professor asked a room full of experienced EMBAs, is budgeting bad for business?  The overwhelming answer...The typical budgeting process has been, and still is one of the most destructive processes within a corporation. Good opportunities are missed, destructive politics and the character of good people become questionable. It's bad but, it's a necessary evil.

Question: Is it a necessary evil? How can we make it less destructive?

Are Budgets Bad for Business?

Here's an oldie but a goodie... an opposite view of "Budgeting is good for business";

1. They control the wrong things and miss the right ones.

2. They erect walls.

3. They assume that everything is translatable to dollars, but just because a budget was not over spent, doesn't mean that it was well spent.

4. They create distorted behavior, managers do incredibly stupid things to make budget.

5. They do not measure value creation.

(source: “Why Budgets Are Bad for Business,” Fortune, June 4, 1990)