Invest in New Products Based on Expected ROI
To invest is to allocate money and other resources in the expectation of a future benefit. New Product Development certainly fits this description. Shouldn’t NPD projects be selected based on their expected ROI?
Chasing too many projects with little prospect for return wastes money and deprives good projects from funding. This lack of focus results in lower financial performance. With a process to select the right product concepts before they are developed, profits can rise. Market research, realistic estimates of sales over time and risk adjusted discounting rates allow a truthful comparison between products. We design this process for you. Our team has designed and implemented new product development processes with stages and gates in several companies and industries.
- One client closed 80% of its R&D projects
- Another company restarted a project in limbo for 4 years after demonstrating its potential to double Sales and margins
- Another firm closed a 3 year long project after establishing that the best cost it could hope to achieve was 2x the market price
- The same company found that implementing our methodology at the start of a (small) project would have saved $6 million.
What is the expected ROI for products currently under development? Are the best projects resourced for success?
Build a New Business Line outside the Core Business
From Aerospace to Architectural Glass: Leveraging Core Technology
A small industrial manufacturer wanted to add a commercial line of business to its existing government and aerospace business.
TAI searched for commercial opportunities the company could create by applying its core technology in new ways. The search focused on the value the company could uniquely provide to justify prices 10 to 20 times higher than those of similar products and matching that value to needs in different verticals.
TAI wrote the specification for products specific to this market, mapped the potential market, and developed a customer target list. TAI handled all Business Development and Marketing. The client protected its newly created IP with a patent.
After 8 years, the commercial business was as large as the initial core business. TAI provided 1/4 FTE and spread it over all activities to accommodate the company’s limited resources. The breadth of competence brought by TAI and continuity over many years were essential to achieving these results.
Selecting the Best Markets for Expansion
What do you do when your services can be used in many sectors of the economy but will need to be customized by application? One company hired TAI to help them choose. Our cross sector experience allowed us to segment the whole economy into appropriate sectors. TAI developed a set of criteria to rank the sectors and showed how the company’s platform could be applied to provide value in the best sectors. Competitive analysis showed that the services envisioned would be way ahead of the competition and render the company indispensable to its clients.
Strategic Planning
A company needed to close the gap between revenue objectives and actual results and to prevent short term priorities from displacing the longer term and more lucrative projects. A Strategic Planning process was needed. The new Marketing Executive (Now at TAI) created and implemented the Strategic Planning process and coached the team through its first use until a consensus was reached. The result was alignment and rapid progress on the agreed upon plan.
Improve Profit by Eliminating Inefficiencies
- Sales representatives in unproductive territories
- Development of products rarely sold
- CRM requiring excessive inputs
- Digital assets that do not inform prospects
- Pricing that ignores actual costs
- Complex or time consuming processes that do not create customer value
It often takes a fresh eye to spot these areas that burn profits quietly. Fixing the problem often has a multiplier effect in customer satisfaction, acceleration of revenue, better employee attitude, and lower turn over.
Where and How to Expand your Business
Building a new business line, entering a new market, expanding globally or domestically, building partnerships, adding new channels ( E-Commerce, distributors, direct sales), researching acquisitions or the sale of a business, implementing strategic planning to focus resources are all part of our experience and are understood in the bigger business context. Should you or should you not? What is the best practice?
Increase Sales Efficiency
There is more to Sales efficiency than balanced territories. TAI analyses Sales data, market data, and the competition help clients focus on the best oppotunities in alignment with the company strategy. Higher revenue per person and higher margins generally ensue.
Sales Territory Balancing
TAI can map a list of accounts, existing or prospective, and show how to optimize sales or distribution territories. The list can be provided by the client. If provided by TAI, it can become a target list for direct sale, distribution, Marketing automation, or local advertising.
One client avoided recruiting a new distributor, saving several times the cost of the project.
Profitability Analysis
Understanding which products are profitable, which customers are the most profitable is the first step in taking action to increase margin. The most profitable prospects can be targeted and unprofitable products can be dealt with.
One client called this the best analysis they had ever seen.