Product Acuity - Product Acuity

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Practice Areas

puzzle peices The pressure to deliver the right product to the right market at the right time has never been greater.

Today's thriving companies are the ones that define, produce, and promote products that not only meet current customer needs but also position the company for future success and growth. This requires a deep understanding of: customer needs, emerging opportunities, market trends, evolving technology capabilities, competitive activities, internal strengths and weakness, and a firm foundation in business management fundamentals.

In short, it requires exceptional product management that can pull all of the pieces together and champion product programs that win the support of the entire organization. Our product management practice focuses on helping companies build world class product management capabilities, providing guidance on developing appropriate structure, process, and individual skill sets needed to navigate the challenges in the modern day organization.

wrecking ball Product innovation efforts within many companies focus on incremental improvements to established product lines in order to maintain current competitive position. However, such focus limits the opportunities for growth to the potential of the underlying served segments.

We specialize in finding disruptive opportunities that deliver entirely new value propositions, redefine competitive landscapes, and open up significant new growth opportunities. Our experience with a wide range of technologies across diverse market applications provides the insight needed to recognize opportunities not readily visible to industry veterans. These opportunities often emerge from applying technologies and solutions proven in other markets to the needs of currently served customers, or applying current product capabilities to new markets, or from leveraging different channels and business models to reach underserved market segments.

Our expert knowledge of emerging market dynamics allows us to develop business, market, and product strategies that match technology capabilities with unsatisfied needs, eliminate barriers to adoption, and drive rapid market penetration.

light bulb New product innovation is the very life blood of IT firms today as the rapid evolution of contemporary technology quickly renders established products obsolete, reconfigures competitive landscapes, and simultaneously creates new opportunities.

However, the successful creation and launch of a new product or service is one of the most complex projects a company can undertake. Our innovation process practice is focused on helping firms improve their overall efficiency and effectiveness in bringing new products to market. Whether implementing a disciplined structured approach for converting ideas into successful market launches for the first time, or addressing current limitations in an already established process, we can help.

Our expertise in fitting proven best-practices to individual cultures and personalities covers the entire innovation cycle from idea generation and opportunity identification, through concept filtering and selection, market strategy and business planning, product development, organizational readiness, and market launch.

phone jack SaaS (Software as a Service) is rapidly emerging as a disruptive force in the IT industry, transforming the very nature of the vendor-customer relationships and creating new growth opportunities.

However, SaaS is far more than subscription payments for hosted software. It has profound impact on virtually all aspects of the business including sales, marketing, finance, support, operations, product development, and customer care. Failure to recognize and effectively plan for this impact can makeentry into the SaaS market a painful if not disastrous endeavor for a classic software firm.

Our SaaS practice focuses on helping companies address the challenges of adding SaaS offerings to their product portfolios. Our services start with identification of appropriate market opportunities and continues with strategic planning,service definition, pricing, assessment and development of organizational readiness, and market launch. With our experience guiding the way, software companies can experience significant new growth opportunities through expansion into SaaS.

gold team Web 2.0 applications and social computing technologies are changing the way the world communicates, allowing customers, business partners, and employees to easily share opinions, wants, needs, ideas, and motivations with each other.

These social computing applications are providing users with access to the right information at the right time through access to the collective intelligence and relevant experiences of others.

Our Web 2.0 practice helps clients make sense of this phenomenon and leverage it to radically improve interactions with constituents and translate it into competitive advantage in the form of increased innovation, productivity, and organizational agility. Opportunities range from improving an organizations on-line presence through web sites that allow for user generated content and community involvement to internal applications focused on improved collaboration among project and innovation team members.

Selected Services

PM Staff Development: The role of a product manager is complex, and changes as a company grows, often leaving current product managers ill equipped to meet the challenges of their ever evolving responsibilities. We can transform your product management function into what you need it to be, whether buidling the function from scratch, or taking current resources to the next level.
Process Improvement: Our assessment of your current new product innovation processes will identify root causes of specific problems. We will then define a course of action to address identified deficiencies in a manner that matches the strategy and current culture of your company. The end result is improvement in the outcomes of your new product efforts.
Opportunity Identification: Our expertise in emerging market dynamics, technology trends,and disruptive strategies,often allows us to identify new market opportunities ready for exploitation not visible to industry veterans. This often involves application of a different business model or introduction of a technology proven in another industry, or new market applications of current solutions.
Strategic Business Plans: Already have an opportunity you want to pursue? We can develop the detailed strategic business plan, providing expert guidance in defining compelling value propositions, market segmentation and sizing, competitive analysis and positioning, pricing, go-to-market channels, demand generation, business models, risk analysis, cash flow and investment requirements, operational budgets, and staffing resources needed.
Product Road Maps: We can guide development the long term product vision and roadmap needed to provide sustained competitive advantage, leverging our expert knowledge of technology trends, market dynamics, and product strategies, and matched to your organizational capabilities, competitive position, and stage of business and market evolution.
Launch Services: We can help plan and execute a holistic product launch plan to establish the market beachhead for a new product and ramp to the desired growth rate. We can also develop appropriate marketing communication materials, product collateral, and sales training programs.
IP Portfolio Development: We provide assistance in developing intellectual property portfolios through the identification of potential patents, and can assist in the patent development process.
SaaS Initiatives: We can guide you through the trials and tribulation of bringing a SaaS offering to market, including selection of hosting approach, channel design, pricing, demand generation, sales training, and development of operational readiness of the organization. We assure your entry into the SaaS market drives growth and does not cannibalize your current revenue.
Web 2.0 Site Design: We can provide your Web 2.0 site, leveraging our open-source based DyKIDo platform to deliver a cutting-edge and feature rich e-community platform. Whether augmenting a SaaS offering, enhancing your customer relations, or seeking a plaform for a focused web community, we can get you up and running in short time and minimal costs. Simply add content and go.
SMB Virtual CTO: We provide vitrual CTO (Chief Technology Officer) services to firms that do not maintain a full time technology officer, but still require the expertise of a seasoned business executive to quide their technology acquisitions and implementations.

We serve a wide range of company types and situations:

Emerging and start-up companies seeking to establish thier initial customer base and growth trajectory.

Growing companies needing to strategically select their opportunities or improve their efficiencies and effectiveness in their product innovation and launch processes.

Established companies in mature markets looking for new growth opportunities.

While we are technologists, our value is not limited to technology based companies or markets. Many of the best opportunities are found by applying new technology to established and mature non-techology markets and applications.

We help businesses increase their revenue and expand their markets through the creation, commercialization, and application ofinformation technology products, services, and solutions. We provide our clients with the experienced business leadership, marketing expertise, and technical knowledge needed to:

Identify unmet customer needs and hidden market opportunities for newapplications of information technologies that not only provideopportunities for new growth, but also disrupt and transform existing markets and industry practices.

Develop comprehensive strategies, business plans,and product roadmaps that leverage your strengths, transform your weaknesses into competitive advantages, and place you on the road to sustainable market leadership.

Improve your organizations capabilities for continuous creation and delivery of successful new product and services that delight customers, produce extraordinary growth, drive market evolution, and accelerate user adoption.

If you are experiencing any of the following situations we can help.

Trying to get a new concept or innovation off the ground and need to find either an appropriate market application for a technology innovation, or need to find the appropriate technology to support your business or application concept.

You seem unable to establish a sustainable competitive find a path that delivers the desired revenue and growth you seek.

Your current new product efforts always seem to be lagging behind the competition.

Your markets and products are mature and you are seeking new opportunities to reinvigorate organizational innovation, growth, or even replacement of declining revenues and margins.