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Why Work With A Product Development Consultant?
You’re probably facing one of these common problems:
“We’re making better decisions, faster”
— Apple Executive on our engagement
- Products are late to market and unpredictable
- Products don’t meet financial objectives
- Products lack innovation
Product Development Consulting is a solution for this typical set of problems that plague product owners and product teams.
Our clients have reported measurable improvements in business performance following an engagement, 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, 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.
Note that if your issues are more 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
- Schedule a no obligation call. Book some time with us. Find out more about how we can help you.
- 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.
- Kick off Project. We will work with you to design a tailored Kick Off to initiate the engagement.
TCGen’s Consulting Services
Our consulting firm, with 20+ years of experience, can help you to optimize 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 that its strategy leverages its brand position and optimization of 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 each of these facets of product development ensures that the resulting product portfolio mirrors corporate strategy.
Implement Product Development Processes
Product development consultants also help your company have a product development process that is aligned with strategy. For example, if your strategy calls for an intense concentration on technical innovation, then your product development process must include a crucible for innovation. Our product development services also include software development, 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. Additionally, product development consultants can assist in supply chain management when applicable.
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:
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:
- We first highlight the pain points.
- Then we agree on goals and KPIs to improve new product development.
- We then identify a small number of the most effective levers of improvement.
- 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), standardized throughout all of Apple’s product divisions to enable it to scale and innovate at the same time.
- Bio-Rad – TCGen worked with a team to design the next-generation platform of diagnostic testing systems. We implemented a unique customer visitation plan. The results: 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 to better fund the product marketing team and increase the number of dedicated resources for each of these teams. This led to positive results in customer satisfaction, increased predictability, and market share.
Product Management to Consulting
If you are interested in helping a company get into new products and services or improving a digital transformation, and you have a background in product management, you might consider undergoing a transition from product management to consulting – either with an established firm or doing it on your own. This is especially true if you have been in a startup or have experience taking a team through the product lifecycle, from the start: discovering customer needs, directing industrial design (or user experience) all the way 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 culture and challenges of the organization 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 then define the key results you would like to achieve. We then craft a customized approach to your product development consulting 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 approaches that work 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 in that you will work directly with someone with deep, hands-on knowledge of product development. We won’t hand you off to a recent MBA recipient. You will get the benefit of working with someone who has developed products enjoyed by millions of people.
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 was the founder of Cambridge-based Product Development Consulting, Inc. (PDC), a consultancy advising Fortune 500 companies in the areas of research, development, and marketing. During his time there, he worked with Apple to create the Apple New Product Process (ANPP) which is used in all product divisions. He has been an invited speaker at MIT and Stanford University and has given webinars for Management Roundtable.
Before starting PDC, John was 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 and 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.
