Success – where does it hail from?

Some people believe if it’s a good idea it will succeed. Many a mighty have fallen with this philosophy. Success comes from many factors.  You need the right product in the right place at the right time and at the right price and customers need to be willing to buy!

Good old fashioned luck also plays a part in the success equation.

For what it’s worth…. I think, successful new product development requires a team of people working collaboratively. and that doesn’t mean that bigger is better.  Yes bigger  have more engineers, lawyers, budgets, sales teams, brand names but they often work less effectively.  They’re attending more meetings, focussing on organisational issues and the daily decisions rather than what’s best for the business.

Competition today is fierce and the sequential process used to be that the new product development project passed through a chain of departments – engineering – finance – manufacturing – marketing – but that’s falling by the way.

Things done concurrently where everyone works together is faster, builds better products and speed to market is quicker. The smaller team communicates better and decisions get made.  You know the old saying, if you don’t want to make a decision, form a committee!

New product development benefits from leveraging too ie: using outside resources.  This reduces the need for permanent fixed overheads and allows businesses to expand and contract as needed.

The Japanese excelled at this.  Look at VCR production in the 80’s. How many brands where there?  Dozens.  They were able to produce a complex machine very quickly because they sourced the innards from one supplier who specialised in designing and producing the mini bits.  Proof that external specialists can be extremely valuable in getting the project done.

But these small entrepreneurial Japanese companies got bigger and more bureaucratic and the edge for manufacturing has slipped.

So move over Japan let’s say a quick G’day to China, oh and by the way, please stand up and make way for India!