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Product Development Consulting

TCGen’s Product Development Consulting helps you develop better products, faster

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Why Work With A Product Development Consultant?

You’re probably facing one of these common problems:

  • Products are late to market and unpredictable
  • Products don’t meet financial objectives 
  • Products lack innovation

We’re making better decisions, faster.

– Apple Executive on our engagement

Development Consulting is a solution for this typical set of problems that plague product owners and product teams.

Product Development Consulting Approach

Our clients have reported measurable improvements in business performance following an engagement with our product development services, including:

  • Cutting Time to Market
  • Exceeding sales forecasts
  • Improving product profitability
  • Improving product development predictability
  • Creating more innovative products
  • Fostering an agile environment

Clients across industries, including IT, consumer electronics, financial services, healthcare, life sciences, medical devices, aerospace, automotive, consumer products, IOT, and industrial products, hire consulting firms to improve the performance of their development projects, always adhering to each industry’s best practices. 

If your issues are typically in the “what’s and why’s, “you may be better off with product management consulting firms. In this case, the consulting process may focus on market research, market trends, and industrial design or user experience to help create more innovative products.

Whatever you want to improve…

  • Product Innovation
  • Time to Market (TTM)
  • Rapid Prototyping
  • Supply Chain Robustness
  • Product Management
  • Project Management
  • Product Design
  • Product Quality
  • Product launch/GTM 

…a new product development consultant may be able to help.

How to Engage with TCGen

How to Engage with TCGen
  1. Schedule a no-obligation call. Book some time with us. Find out more about how we can help you. 
  2. We will write it up & review with you. We will send you what we learned from the call and suggest options for working together. If it meets your needs, we can send you a proposal.
  3. Kick-off Project. We will work with you to design a tailored kick-off to initiate the engagement.
Product Development Consulting Benefits

TCGen’s Consulting Services

With 20+ years of experience, our consulting firm can help you optimize end-to-end product strategy and product development processes while accelerating your innovation strategy and enhancing organizational effectiveness.

  • Improve predictably
  • Accelerate innovation
  • Increase throughput (product velocity)
  • Increase Organizational Effectiveness
  • Improve Product Strategy and Product Portfolios

Improve Product Strategy, Product Portfolio Management, and Innovation

Typically, our services will help a company ensure its strategy leverages its brand position and optimizes margins and pricing. It will help you tune up your strategy so that it is clearly stated and tied to the vision, product roadmaps, and budget. A clear tie between these product development facets ensures that the product portfolio mirrors corporate strategy.

Implement New Product Development Processes

Product development consultants also help your company develop a product development process aligned with strategy. For example, if your design calls for an intense concentration on technical innovation, your product development process must include a crucible for innovation. Our product development services also include software development methodologies, too.

Accelerate Innovation

Helping with hearing the voice of the customer is another service that product development consultants provide. Nothing is more essential to ideation as effective inbound marketing as the voice of the customer. Superior consulting firms may help your company establish innovation programs such as Design Thinking for capturing and leveraging the customer’s voice, including techniques that apply to a global business.

We also can recommend how to interact with target customers through prototype demos throughout development. Product development consultants can also assist in supply chain management when applicable, providing valuable insights into consulting deliverables.

Exceed Business Plan Goals. 

Improve Your Time To Market. 

Ramp your revenue.

TCGen’s Approach to Product Development Consulting

Although each engagement is unique, most of them are variations of these types:

Product development engagement Approaches

Regardless of the specific consulting area, TCGen’s approach typically begins with a thorough assessment of your organization’s needs and follows it with focused training for team members and their managers, including product managers:

  1. We first highlight the pain points. 
  2. Then, we agree on goals and KPIs to improve new product development. 
  3. We then identify a small number of the most effective levers of improvement. 
  4. We associate each of these product development levers with a metric.

TCGen’s Consulting Case Studies

As chief engineer at BOSE, TCGen founder John Carter managed the development of products such as the BOSE® Wave® Music System and Noise-Cancelling Headphones, enjoyed by millions of customers worldwide. He brings hands-on experience to his consulting engagements. 

He has led Product Development engagements and initiatives across industries, and below are a few case studies:

  • Apple – John designed and implemented the Apple New Product Process (ANPP), which is standardized throughout all of Apple’s product divisions to enable it to scale and innovate simultaneously.
  • Bio-Rad – TCGen worked with a team to design the next-generation diagnostic testing systems platform. We implemented a unique customer visitation plan. The result was a platform launch that was the most successful ever for Bio-Rad and has been an enduring winner for them over many years.
  • HP – We worked with general management, marketing, and engineering to understand gaps in product development and how to fill them. We helped management fund the product marketing team better and increased the number of dedicated resources for each team. This led to positive results in customer satisfaction, improved predictability, and market share.

Product Management to Consulting

Suppose you are interested in helping a company get into new products and services or improving a digital transformation, specifically in digital product management. In that case, you might consider transitioning from product management to consulting – either with an established firm or on your own, specializing in new product consulting. This is especially true if you have been in a startup or have experience taking a team through the product lifecycle, from discovering customer needs and directing industrial design (or user experience) to product launch.

The TCGen Difference

TCGen’s approach as a product development consultant differs from the others because we listen. We drive deeply into the organization’s culture and challenges in both management and the new product development teams. Our Project History approach captures the voices within your organization and enables you to learn from the past as you imagine your future.

In a dialog with senior leadership, we define the key results you want to achieve. We then craft a customized approach to your product development engagement. We understand how to leverage your operating model to implement change.

We do not believe in a “one size fits all” approach. Our new product development consultant engagements enable you to select only the best approaches for you. Too many consultants complicate processes to no end. We’ll help you implement only what makes a difference. 

“John has that rare combination of brilliance and pragmatism that truly sets him apart. John is world class.”

— Dan Keller, HP Executive

TCGen is also different because you will work directly with someone with deep, hands-on product development knowledge. We won’t hand you off to a recent MBA recipient. You will benefit from working with someone who has developed products millions of people enjoy.

About John Carter

John Carter has been a widely respected adviser to technology firms over his career. He is the author of Innovate Products Faster: Graphical Tools for Accelerating Product Development. As Founder and Principal of TCGen Inc., he has advised some of the most revered technology firms in the world:

  • Abbott, Amazon, Apple
  • BOSE, Cisco, Fitbit
  • HP, IBM, Roche

John has years of experience in the value-creating aspects of product development – from the strategy and innovation processes through product definition, execution, and launch. He has helped companies cut time to market, rapidly scale their product program, and improve innovation with customer-led insights, leading to greater profitability, reduced costs, and improved customer satisfaction.  

He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Cirrus Logic (CRUS), a leading supplier of mixed-signal semiconductors, where he is involved with company strategy and sits on the Compensation and Audit Committees. 

John founded Cambridge-based Product Development Consulting, Inc. (PDC), a consultancy advising Fortune 500 companies in research, development, and marketing. During his time there, he worked with Apple to create the Apple New Product Process (ANPP), used in all product divisions. He has been an invited speaker at MIT and Stanford University and has given webinars for the Management Roundtable.

Before starting PDC, John was the Chief Engineer of BOSE Corporation. John is the inventor of the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones and shares the original patent with Dr. Amar Bose. He was one of the initial contributors to BOSE’s entry into the automobile OEM business. He led the product and business development of BOSE’s patented noise reduction technology for the military market.

He earned his MS in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BS in engineering from Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA. You can see more of John’s background on Linkedin.

TCGen Principal & Founder

John Carter

John Carter specializes in product development, from the strategy and innovation processes to product definition, execution, and launch. He has helped companies cut time to market, rapidly scale their product program, and improve innovation with customer-led insights. His work leads to greater profitability, reduced costs, and improved customer satisfaction.

John currently serves on the Board of Directors of Cirrus Logic (CRUS), a leading supplier of mixed-signal semiconductors. He is involved with company strategy and sits on the Compensation and Audit Committees.

Before starting the consulting firm TCGen, John was the Chief Engineer of BOSE Corporation. John is the inventor of the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones and shares the original patent with Dr. Amar Bose. He was one of the initial contributors to BOSE’s entry into the automobile OEM business. He led the product and business development of BOSE’s patented noise reduction technology for the military market.

John Carter, TCGen Principal & Founder