Product First Roadmap
A tool to Identify and Realise Value through Product Development
Many manufacturers are struggling to link strategy with operations, and as a result, great plans often remain just that-plans-and not great products. Yet a few standout companies find a way to cross this divide and create robust and regular pipelines of successful products. By studying the traits of these winners, a Product First Roadmap has been created -a unique tool to help manufacturers find and unlock the value within product development.
What is Product First?
Product First is a philosophy built on the idea that great products make great companies. After all, it's the product that defines a manufacturing company in the eyes of the customer. It's the product that creates enthusiasm and loyalty in the marketplace.
Product First places product at the centre of business strategy, creating an adaptable framework for leveraging other business imperatives, such as building customer relationships, optimising the supply chain, and efficiently allocating resources. When the mission of building and sustaining great products is at the core of everything a company does, significant value will be created.
But creating that value is challenging. Some estimates indicate that nearly half of product development resources are spent on products that fail.* For those manufacturers who are committed to putting product first, a tool is available to help them lay their plans and plot a course. That tool is the Product First Roadmap.
The Product First Framework
The fundamental premise of the Product First Roadmap is that value (e.g., total company value, equity plus debt, stock price, etc.) is driven by earnings, which are most directly influenced by growth and profitability. To understand how product development can influence both growth and profitability, the following framework can be used which is comprised of four primary components:
- Strategy - Product development strategy capitalises on opportunities to enhance business value by driving growth and/or profitability.
- Initiatives - Business initiatives are the 'actions' required to achieve your strategy, and they often necessitate a change in people, process, and/or technology.
- Operations - Your business initiatives will, no doubt, impact specific operations within your product development process, such as digital model definition, digital product data management, project management and execution, and change management.
- Capabilities - Lastly, a company must implement the necessary capabilities to provide a solid foundation for the entire framework. Capabilities include: capturing all forms of product related intellectual property in digital formats, establishing a single source of product data, and conducting virtual design reviews.
What's Next?
If you are finding that you are struggling to bring your products to market efficiently, then maybe it's time to look at the Product First Roadmap, and discover the most direct way to realising value from product development. The Roadmap is particularly effective if you are:
- Considering a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) initiative;
- Trying to figure out whether PLM is right for your company;
- Wondering just what PLM is; or
- Trying to build a return-on-investment business case for PLM
No matter what your ultimate goal, the Product First Roadmap can be your guide. We invite you to schedule a consultation with a member of our team at: +353 (0)1 886 9010