New Product Development

New products and services start with an idea.  All too often, that's where they end as well. 

Why?  The difference between a successful and unsuccessful innovation comes down, most of the time, to the quality of the process by which it goes to market.  A good process does not guarantee a successful product or service.  But a bad process will doom even the best ideas to failure.   

The Development Process.  Alan/Anthony takes your company's capabilities and transforms them into successful new products and services.  We bring a structured process to the typically messy business of innovation:

• We define and document the opportunity, the service or product idea, and the potential obstacles as they are seen inside your company.
• From this raw material, we develop a product concept that fully defines the deliverables, how they are provided, the features and the benefits to the customer.
• The product concept goes through several versions to strip away the weaker features and benefits, better focus on customer needs, and strengthen the value proposition.
• We put the approved product concept through our competitive intelligence process to identify direct competitors and analyze their relative strengths and weaknesses.  Based on this clear-eyed view of potential obstacles, our client makes the decision whether or not to go to market.
• From a "go" decision, we create a marketing plan, develop sales and marketing materials based on the product concept, conduct a controlled introduction to the marketplace and evaluate results.
• Initial success is followed by full-scale roll-out through the existing sales and marketing organization.

Through this process, Alan/Anthony prevents its clients from wasting time and money on "me too" products and services, and sharply improves the chances that competitive products and services will succeed in the market. 

Example.  A publicly-owned provider of communications systems and services developed a unique technology solution for one customer's problem, but was unable to close another sale.  Its customer wanted to develop a mobile telephone network in the developing world but lacked the capital for a conventional build-out.  To meet the requirement, our client developed a mobile base station that connected via satellite to a mobile switching center our client installed at its own network operations center.  The resulting network used highly efficient IP communications and innovative technology that allowed the base stations to share a small amount of costly satellite bandwidth.  For rural markets, this made satellite far less expensive than conventional terrestrial connections between base stations.  And it put our client, for the first time, into the "switched minutes" business of carrying telephone calls, which could be very profitable, if the client could figure out how to interest other companies in the capability.  After three years of unsuccessful attempts, the client entered our new product development process and emerged with a branded service offering and strategy for strategic partnerships with established players in mobile.  Within 18 months, it closed four contracts with US and foreign carriers serving rural markets, creating the foundation for a successful line of business. 

Next Step.  To discuss your product or service development needs, contact Louis Zacharilla at 212-825-1582 x102 or lzacharilla@alananthony.com. 

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