Product Development
Turn Custom Services into Products and Boost Your Bottom Line
The opportunity is probably staring you in the face
Look around you. If you see your employees spending lots of time creating one-off solutions for your customers, then you have an opportunity to create more profitable growth for your company. Many businesses fall into a rut of providing labor-intensive services or custom software that could be productized. Something has to change if you want to put your business on a track that is more profitable and scalable for the future.
Being proactive is the key to breaking the mold
Repetitive customization generally occurs because people are overwhelmed with reacting to individual customer requirements. If your team is too busy reacting, then it will have a difficult time developing a product that serves multiple clients at a lower cost per client. Product creation requires a proactive business environment as well as the abilities to synthesize imperfect information and to abstract requirements.
Survey the situation and ask the right questions
The biggest challenge in creating a successful product is making sure that it is based on market-driven requirements and that it will sell once you build it. If you are providing repetitive services or custom software for your clients, then you probably already have the makings of a product right in front of you. In fact, it's relatively straightforward to figure out what the product should be, because you already have the experience and market knowledge that will provide the basis for the product requirements. The next step is to go through a systematic process of deciding which custom services make sense to productize. Look for areas that are error prone due to human intervention. What portion of the manual process can be automated? Are you developing the same software over and over again to meet similar needs for different customers? Can you serve your customers better or leapfrog the competition by productizing?
Don't wait to get started
Many companies become paralyzed when they look at product development, because they try to bite off too big of a chunk at one time. The trick is to pick something small and get started so that you can experience success early. Look for something that will have a high impact on your clients, but a low impact on your internal resources. Get the right people in place from sales, client services, production, and product development to bring the product to market. And get it done quickly. You can proceed with confidence, because you know that you have something your customer will buy -- you are already providing it to them on a custom basis. Now just follow the KISS principal and don't let process overshadow your objective to change your business.
Look around you. If you see your employees spending lots of time creating one-off solutions for your customers, then you have an opportunity to create more profitable growth for your company. Many businesses fall into a rut of providing labor-intensive services or custom software that could be productized. Something has to change if you want to put your business on a track that is more profitable and scalable for the future.
Being proactive is the key to breaking the mold
Repetitive customization generally occurs because people are overwhelmed with reacting to individual customer requirements. If your team is too busy reacting, then it will have a difficult time developing a product that serves multiple clients at a lower cost per client. Product creation requires a proactive business environment as well as the abilities to synthesize imperfect information and to abstract requirements.
Survey the situation and ask the right questions
The biggest challenge in creating a successful product is making sure that it is based on market-driven requirements and that it will sell once you build it. If you are providing repetitive services or custom software for your clients, then you probably already have the makings of a product right in front of you. In fact, it's relatively straightforward to figure out what the product should be, because you already have the experience and market knowledge that will provide the basis for the product requirements. The next step is to go through a systematic process of deciding which custom services make sense to productize. Look for areas that are error prone due to human intervention. What portion of the manual process can be automated? Are you developing the same software over and over again to meet similar needs for different customers? Can you serve your customers better or leapfrog the competition by productizing?
Don't wait to get started
Many companies become paralyzed when they look at product development, because they try to bite off too big of a chunk at one time. The trick is to pick something small and get started so that you can experience success early. Look for something that will have a high impact on your clients, but a low impact on your internal resources. Get the right people in place from sales, client services, production, and product development to bring the product to market. And get it done quickly. You can proceed with confidence, because you know that you have something your customer will buy -- you are already providing it to them on a custom basis. Now just follow the KISS principal and don't let process overshadow your objective to change your business.