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Technology & Innovation Best Practices Briefing

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Breakthrough product innovations were once the domain of unpredictable luck and serendipitous actions. Today, leading firms leverage defined, structured, and deliberate processes to continuously deliver the innovations needed to maintain market position and support growth targets.  At the same time, advancing technologies are quickly disrupting establish practices. 
 
As technologist, and innovation management experts, we track advances in both domains.  We monitor emerging information technology trends for their potential to impact and disrupt current markets, organizational practices, and consumer behavior.  We also track the evolution of best practices for innovation in organizations.  These are foundational activities of our business.
 
We cover emerging technologies and contemporary innovation management practices that position an organization to exploit new opportunities that may emerge, providing the foundation knowledge needed to guide improvement in an organization’s innovation capabilities and competitive advantage.
 
 We package our current knowledge into an executive staff briefing to inform business leaders of emerging trends that may impact their business or provide new opportunities, along with an overview of innovation management best practices so the executive staff has a general awareness of how their company compares.

Innovation Capability Assessment

Radar Graph of Innovation Parameters

We provide a data-driven 360-degree view of an organization’s ability to innovate, based upon the application of numerous contemporary frameworks and practices. The outcome is a blueprint of a company’s current strengths and weaknesses, bench-marked against other firms.  This provides the foundation for mapping out improvement plans in a firm’s ability to continuously innovate in multiple areas, which leads to a sustainable competitive advantage. 

The process involves a compilation of insights from multiple respondents including both external and internal stakeholders to provide a comprehensive analysis of what, why and how innovation projects came to fruition in your firm.   It includes a data-driven evaluation of 16 different aspects of the organization's innovation viewed through 8 different innovation perspectives, based on examination of 66 different core capabilities.  The results are then bench-marked against the results of other firms to provide a picture of your current company strengths and weaknesses. 
 
 

Value Proposition Design: Training & Advisory Service

Blue Balloon rising about a sea of white ballonsInadequate value propositions are the #1 reason products fail.  The key to success of a new product is a clear, compelling, competitively superior, value proposition. A well defined value proposition will drive the development of key features as well as appropriately direct your marketing communications effort. Unfortunately many firms develop and launch new products without defining the value proposition, resulting in poor market performance.

Our value proposition training and advisory service provides your team with the knowledge, tools, and processes needed to systematically design and test superior value propositions. This results in improved alignment of product attributes with customer needs, and improved market success. 
 
Our training is focused on the use and application of the Value Proposition Canvas with ongoing advisory and support services where we work closely with you in applying these tools to your situation.
 

Business Model Innovation: Training & Advisory Service

Your Business Model is the blueprint for your business and defines how your business operates to create and deliver your value proposition.  Defining the proper business model is therefore critical to success. Business Model innovation is emerging as an area of significant opportunity as returns generated from this activity can surpass those of new product introductions.  This is due to its ability to discover both new approaches to delivering value and new previously hidden revenue streams.  We help clients find and exploit these hidden opportunities through our Business Model training and advisory service. 
 
BUSINESS MODELS
  • and involves (4) four distinct steps: 
  • Understand the current state of the business and competitive landscape.
  • Assess  your current business model and finding differentiating ways to improve.
  • Validate your ideas with the marketplace.
  • Implement the new model.
 
 We train your team in the use and application of the Business Model Canvas and related techniques to provide a structured, practical approach to designing and testing business models.  We then provide additional advisory services where we work with your business model innovation project team as the apply the technique to your situation with an approach customized to your specific needs and situation.   (See Business Model Training and Advisory Service.)
 
  See Business Model Innovation for move information.

New Venture Business Plan Coaching

Got a idea for a new business, product or service, but struggling to give it structure?

Want to improve your existing business model?

Overwhelmed by writing your business plan?
start up We can provide you with the solution you need.  We will walk you, and/or your team, through the use of simple one page tools to define your value proposition and business model.  We will then work with you to develop a specific business model for your business idea.  When filling out the business model canvas, we will facilitate brainstorming to give your ideas form, and highlight areas that need additional research and validation. We will then assist in structuring the research activities. The data you collect can be placed in each relevant section of the canvas tools. Once your value proposition and business model are confirmed, we will guide you through creating the additional elements needed to create your business plan.
 
Our coaching service and process addresses the following issues that increase your rate of success.
  • Clearly explaining your idea – Map your Value Proposition: - We'll help you distill your idea into the one-page visual Value Proposition Canvas which will give you a clear picture of how you intend to create value for your customers.

  • Why would customers care about your idea? – Check for Fit:  - Believe it or not, building something nobody wants is the number one cause of death for businesses. We’ll show you how to critically assess how your idea creates true value for customers. You may be shocked during this phase by how many gaps you find in your value proposition.

  • How do you stack up? – Assess the Competition:  Even if your idea connects well with customers, the competitive market could crush it. It's time to assess the competition and decide where to compete or differentiate.

  • What should you change and how? – Improve your Idea: By now the holes that will sink your initial idea will be clear – how do you plug the gaps and take it to the next level?  We'll help you evolve your idea by using our library of quick and inexpensive prototyping techniques.

  • Are you setting yourself up for a costly failure? – Test and De-risk:  Until you’ve taken steps to identify the unknowns and reduce uncertainty – you very well could be. We'll show you how to find hidden assumptions that could kill your idea. Using our simple tools and rich experiment library, you will produce evidence rather than gambling on guesses. You'll better understand what will work, what won’t, and how to proceed with confidence. Don’t let the fear of failure weigh you down.

Professional Product Manager Education

New products are the life-blood of a contemporary thriving business and requires staff that know the why, what, and how of new product creation.  Product Managers often serve as the focal point role for new product and service activities with responsibility for guiding the related innovation activities within the firm. This is a complex cross-function role that spans the various boundaries of an organization. We often find individuals in this role have limitation in certain areas. Our product management training and coaching services are focused on developing the knowledge and skills needed by product managers. The result is an improvement in organizational competencies in regard to delivering new innovations.
 
NPDP NPDP (New Product Development Professional) certification training provides Product and Market Managers with foundational knowledge and education in the seven critical areas required for success.  This prestigious certification is developed and offered by the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA), the number one global practitioner and academic driven, independent non-profit organization, for advancing end-to-end new product development and management. knowledge, wisdom, and expertise.
 
The credential is based upon an internationally recognized body of knowledge covering seven critical knowledge domains needed for successful new product innovation.
 
As a PDMA Registered Education Provider, our certification workshop prepares individuals to sit for the NPDP certification exam, and our more in depth training courses serve to address any gaps in knowledge, skills and abilities.  For more information on NDPD certification requirements see NPDP.   Contact us for more information on our specific course offerings, venues, and schedule.
 
We are now in process of creating an on-line product manager academy for training in the soft skills needed for success as a product manager.

Business Consulting and Advisory Services

Our general consulting and advisory services are designed to compliment and extend our other offerings and are focused on addressing issues related to new product efforts.  Specific areas and topics include:
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  • Business, market, and product strategy;
  • Innovation strategy and charter. 
  • Strategic alignment across the organization.
  • Idea generation, selection, and management.
  • Program definition, analysis, and planning.
  • New product governance practices (stage-gate).
  • Portfolio management.
  • Development practices (agile). 
  • Product management function.
  • Commercialization and launch processes. 
Consulting and advisory services are customized to the specific and unique requirements of each individual client with a focus on improving the ROI on investment in new product efforts.  Engagement ranges from addressing a specific task or problem to generalized interim executive services, where we work full time as a contract employee.  The latter is often used to provide the initial leadership needed to structure a new initiative or fill a specific knowledge gap in staffing needs.  This service as includes fractional executive services, where services are provided in less than full time, but on an extended basis. 
 

Contact us contactustoday (281.858.3271) for a free no obligation discussion of your current needs and situation.

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