Product Development

During the product development process, we work together on these three steps:

1. Assessment on internal capabilities

• We are all human, whether customer, supplier, employee, boss, partner, etc. Therefore, everything begins with the people who work for the company. The first step is to get an overview of the skills, willingness to perform and motivation of your employees. As far as possible, all managers are involved in order to derive a very detailed picture.
  
• The next step is to look at your existing technical resources. Here it is determined which machines, devices and software are used by your company. It is recorded what the assets are currently being used for and which possibilities they would theoretically still offer, but which are not used.
  
• The last step in this product development stage is the overview of your processes, workflows and production steps. In the final stage, this representation is intended to show whether the new product can be seamlessly integrated into your process chains, or whether significant changes may be required.
  

In this first stage of the process, I will involve you and all your employees very closely in your daily work. It is important that you are aware of this and are willing to take on this effort.

2. Evaluation of new markets

• In the second step of product development, the search for economically viable new markets begins. First of all, this happens completely value-free, no demarcations such as B2B and B2C or partial and end product are made. During this phase, mainly only the insights of your sales staff will be necessary and the additional effort in your workforce remains manageable. The consideration is based on the following criteria:
  
• Industry-related: in which industries are you already represented and do they have meaningful expansion potentials, which are new industries that are interesting for you and which have not yet been considered today. Are there future regulatory changes in industries that will force them to take new actions and can your company participate in them?
  
• Customer-related: who is your current customer group and does it have meaningful expansion potentials, what do potential future customer groups look like and how can they be developed.
  
• Geographically: in which regions, countries or continents are you already represented and what effort does that mean for you. Are there regions for which your services/products can be particularly valuable.
  
• Competitive: What is your competition doing and what are their plans. Which new competitors arise from the above three new market considerations.
  
• Partner-related: which partners do you operate with and how are they set up in terms of performance. How strongly do these partners influence your added value and how strong is your common basis of trust?

3. Product Design/Service Design

• The last step in this process takes place with you and your management team. You will be presented with the detailed findings from the first two phases, including new product/service options. After an internal decision-making, a joint workshop follows in which the following tasks are defined and distributed:
  
• Process definition: how will the new product/service be integrated into the existing portfolio and how can existing workflows/processes be used for the creation or how do they have to be adapted.
  
• Cost calculation: What costs does the product / service cause and what is the market price for it. How high is the added value or the expected contribution margin.
  
• Customer/market definition: what is the target market or target group for the new product/service. How does the company become visible with the news and how is the market/customer addressed.

These steps are usually ending in necessary business developments, which you can then work on internally with your management team or carry out with my support.