Ditch the budget. First of all, as per this Financial Times article, there is no correlation between R&D spend and innovation success. Secondly, as per this Harvard Business Review blog post, fixing an innovation budget puts your people into a mindset that their innovation is limited to the budget they have. Third, and most important, while you can budget the cost of product development (based on what the market is expected to bear), you can’t budget the cost of innovation. That relies as much on inspiration as it does perspiration. Plus, and this …
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July 1st, 2010 | Posted in Product Management, Sourcing Innovation
… but there’s also risk as well. In fact, I’d say the risk is as big as the opportunity presented in this Global Services article on the globalization of R&D and Product Development which claims that there is a tremendous opportunity for growth based on the fact that only 5% of current R&D spend is based on outsourced partnerships. While it is true that the average small to mid-sized software product company will continue to be faced with cost pressures and increased revenue expectations, that headcount in other economies like China, India, Poland, and Russia are …
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June 17th, 2010 | Posted in Global Trade, India, Outsourcing, Product Management
I found a recent article in CPO Agenda on how to engineer fresh opportunities to control spending quite timely given the extended recession and the limited revenue growth opportunities due to the reduced amounts of disposable income end customers have in their pockets to buy products and services. According to the article, effective demand management is the next logical step to controlling costs and driving down inefficiency and waste, and along with improved inventory management and distribution network design, they’re right. With a better understanding of the factors at the root of demand for products, services or internal …
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March 28th, 2010 | Posted in Best Practices, Product Management
Share This on Linked InIn supply management, front end loading is the coming together of all stakeholders in a multi-disciplinary team to insure that the concept, value, and strategy of a proposed product are worked out well before the design is finalized and production begins. It focusses on front-end planning, and insures that required [...]
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August 4th, 2009 | Posted in Manufacturing, Product Management
Share This on Linked In A recent article in Supply Chain Digest listed the seven timeless challenges of supply chain management, as described by Dr. J. Paul Dittmann, the Director of the Office of Corporate Partnership at the University of Tennessee. While I have to agree that these challenges are “timeless” in that [...]
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July 3rd, 2009 | Posted in Global Trade, Product Management, Supply Chain, inventory
Share This on Linked In A recent article in Industry Week on portfolio management in a down economy did a great job of summarizing all the mistakes dumb companies make in a down economy in blind efforts to conserve cash. As I have said before, and as the author [...]
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June 25th, 2009 | Posted in Product Management, Technology
A recent Industry Week article, that noted that adoption of product lifecycle management (PLM) technology is reaching record levels and that the PLM market experienced a stronger-than-expected 13.5% growth rate to reach an estimated 24.3 Billion in 2007, also reported that implementations can quickly develop returns on investment of 100% to 300%. Considering the [...]
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November 8th, 2008 | Posted in Manufacturing, Product Management, Technology
Today’s guest post is from Bernard Gunther of Lexington Analytics. He can be reached at bgunther <at> lexingtonanalytics <dot> com.Over the last 15 years, I have had hundreds of discussions about commodity structures with CPOs. Invariably, I am asked, “What is the right commodity structure to use?” Or, “Use the UNSPSC structure. It’s an [...]
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October 27th, 2008 | Posted in Guest Author, Miscellaneous, Product Management
A month or so ago, on a busy day, I came across this ZDNet article on the Top 5 issues your IT staff wants to address but is afraid to tell you that I think everyone should read — twice — before embarking on any system modernization that will require the involvement of IT. [...]
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October 17th, 2008 | Posted in Product Management, Technology
Are we in a recession? Unknown. However, you do know whether or not you believe we are in one, and if you do believe we are in one, you’re likely to go overboard on belt-tightening and cost-cutting. That’s why I want to point out a great article that appeared on Business Week last [...]
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February 25th, 2008 | Posted in Product Management, Sourcing Innovation
