Product development is commonly used to refer to all stages of getting a product from concept or idea through market release and beyond. In other words, product development encompasses the complete life cycle of a product.
This process has numerous steps, and not every organization follows the same path. There are also countless ways for things to go wrong, stall, or become unduly cumbersome.
What is Design Thinking?
If you are even considering working with one of the numerous product development consulting firms that offer their services to businesses like yours then You’re probably dealing with one of the following issues:
- Products arrive late to market and launch timelines are unpredictable.
- Products fail to reach financial targets.
- Customers are not delighted by products.
- Roles in product development are unclear.
- Product developers are exhausted and unhappy in their roles.
Product development consulting can be utilized by businesses of all sizes to solve these common product development consulting issues and many more.
Why New Product Development is So Important
Sometimes we are, as a leading product development consulting firm, if product development is even right for some businesses in general, let alone consulting on it. If a business is making money with a few top sellers then why interrupt the status quo by trying to introduce new complications into the mix? Why not just keep churning out the same things, especially if people seem to be buying?
Product development is critical for businesses for multiple reasons. Probably more than we can go into here right now. However these are some of the most important:
1. Offer Your Customers New Value
To deliver fresh value to your customers, you must constantly engage in product development. If you continue to market the same goods to the same individuals for an extended period of time, your audience will grow tired of your brand and will most likely stop purchasing.
Developing new product ideas and testing them in the market keeps your company alive. It provides your brand a more dynamic vibe and enhances its brand personality. This is because your clients can see that you are always introducing new products. They are excited to see what your business will do next. Even industry behemoths (think Apple, Microsoft, Coca Cola, Adidas, Nike to name just a few) ensure that they focus on nurturing this kind of excitement for new products, and you should too.
2. Enhance Society and Local Communities
That sounds lofty and perhaps even a bit dramatic, but it’s actually a very valid point. By having more unique and innovative goods accessible for purchase in a community, you increase variety and better your society. Many new goods are incremental improvements over previous versions.
Companies that frequently improve their existing products can create a positive perception of social innovation. It’s as though these businesses recognize their social responsibilities and work hard to improve the lives of their customers. New product creation can provide customers with immediate and significant delight. That is how it benefits society.
3. Grow Your Business
Product development is also essential for corporate growth. More variety in your product line equals more sales opportunities. New items can be the lifeblood of your business. If your previous items failed, your new products have a chance to succeed. The more things you have to sell, the better your chances of generating and keeping a consistent revenue stream in your firm. New product development also allows you to have access to more sponsors, investors, and partners for your company.
Organizations have little alternative except to expand if they want to survive. To grow and sustain their business, they must occasionally, if not regularly, engage in new product development. And working with product development consulting firms like Pearl Lemon Consulting will ensure that their efforts offer the kind of ROI they are hoping for.
Benefits of Actively Improving Your Product Development Processes
At Pearl Lemon Consulting, we work with clients, not for them, to determine what help they need, and how best to guide them to an improved product development process. Rather than following a formulaic approach we take the time to listen to everyone involved to determine just what’s going wrong, to learn more about the products themselves and, of course, the unique brand those products represent.
Following a product development consulting engagement, our clients have reported measurable gains in many business performance aspects, including:
- Shortening the time to market
- Exceeding sales projections
- Product profitability enhancement
- Increasing the predictability of product development
- Developing new and innovative products
- Creating an agile, flexible work environment for employees and management.
Our consulting firm can assist you in optimizing your product strategy and development processes, as well as speeding innovation and improving organizational effectiveness.
Our services assist your organization in improving its performance in a number of initiatives:
- Implement a more dependable and effective product development procedure at every stage.
- Increase the predictability of product development initiatives.
- Enhance product strategy and portfolios
- Increase throughput (product velocity) and organizational effectiveness by accelerating innovation.
- Help product development teams work smarter, follow agile development processes.
The Pearl Lemon Consulting Product Development Consulting Process
While every project is different, and our services, and advice are unique and bespoke to each client, as you consider working with product development consulting firms we’d like to share more about our basic product development consulting process so you can better understand how we can help, as well as what makes us different:
Enhance Product Strategy, Portfolio Management, and Innovation.
Our services often assist a firm in ensuring that its product development strategy leverages its brand position and that this is represented all the way down to margins and pricing.
It will assist you in fine-tuning your strategy so that it is clearly expressed and linked to a vision, product roadmaps, and budget. A strong link between these aspects of product development guarantees that the ultimate product portfolio reflects business strategy.
Implement Product Development Methodologies
Product development consultants can also assist your organization in developing a product development approach that is strategic in nature. For example, if your strategy calls for a strong emphasis on technical innovation, your product development process must contain a crucible for innovation while also not penalizing teams for taking risks.
Your approach must include a system for gathering the strongest ideas, vetting and prioritizing them, and nurturing them along the long path from raw technology to commercial goods. We’ve also assisted sales and marketing teams in leveraging Design Thinking to boost innovation, and a technology firm in implementing a Discovery methodology.
Better Understand Your Customer’s Voice
Another service that product development consultants provide is assistance in hearing the customer’s voice. Nothing is more important to ideation than excellent inbound marketing as the customer’s voice. Top consulting firms may help your organization in establishing innovation programs such as Design Thinking or Market-Driven Product Definition, which are approaches for recording and exploiting client feedback. Product development consultants can also help with technical supplier management when necessary.
Improve Organizational Efficiency
Another area where product development consultancy might assist is in clarifying roles and responsibilities. For example, too many businesses do not distinguish between product development and product marketing. Simultaneously, product development is not always distinguished from user experience design. No one is really sure who is responsible for what and just what their position is within both the product development process and even the business itself.
Partnerships between consultants like us and companies can help define these positions more precisely, smoothing out ambiguities, expediting decision making, and propelling goods to market, resulting in a well-oiled and seamless management roundtable.
The Pearl Lemon Consulting Difference
Because we listen, Pearl Lemon Consulting’s approach to product development consulting varies from the competition. In both management and the new product development teams, we delve deeply into the organization’s culture and difficulties. As you imagine your future, our Project History approach captures the voices within your company and allows you to learn from the past.
We then specify the key results you want to achieve in a conversation with top leadership. We will then build a tailored approach to your product development consulting engagement.
We do not believe in “one size fits all” solutions. Our new product development consulting engagements allow you to pick and choose which tactics work best for you. Too many consultants further complicate processes. We will assist you in implementing only what is necessary.
Pearl Lemon Consulting is also different in that you will work directly with someone who has extensive experience in product development. We will not assign you to a recent MBA graduate with a notion of product development theory but little real-world experience.
Our product development consulting team is made up of industry experts who have worked in product development in a real, practical way, across a wide range of niches. They have, to put it in basic terms, been in the trenches and have experienced first hand the very problems you are dealing with right now. Their advice and wisdom is based on lessons learned in the real world, not a classroom environment.
Interested in working in one of the leading product development consulting firms to help your business? Contact us today and let’s discuss just how we can help you.
