Every entrepreneur and technical leader wants to build the next blockbuster product and wildly successful company. Despite the desire and vision, success is not easy to find. Studies have shown that only 60 percent of new products introduced[1] and 25 percent of capital-backed ventures[2] achieve success. How do we improve our odds of success? The […]
Turning a Strategic Plan Into Results
You’ve worked for months. Spent endless hours in airports and bland hotel rooms around the world to meet with customers to understand their issues and needs. Poured over market data and read countless 10-Ks and analyst reports in order to calculate market sizes and market growth rates. Business development, finance and regulatory affairs staff provided […]
No-Nonsense Strategic Planning: Make It Meaningful and Actionable
It’s that time of the year again. Time to dust off the desk and put together the business strategy for 2017. How many of you are working at companies that develop a 100-page 3 or 5-year strategic plan that represents a future nirvana vision for your business? The end product is a glorious dream of […]
Delivering Value & New Products: Where to Start?
Developing and delivering new products should be an easy task. Design and rapid prototyping tools allow us to quickly model and test new designs, and more information than ever is available on consumer trends and buying habits. Despite having all of this technology and information available to us, the literature shows that some 40 percent of new […]
Discovering Value: Why Most Managers Fear and Leaders Embrace Risk
It seems there are innumerable ways individuals and organizations attempt to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. At a macro level, government seeks to create jobs. Academic efforts target the recruitment and retention of top students, offer talented faculty an opportunity to pursue efforts outside traditional education or research efforts, or pursue creative alternate funding mechanisms for […]