Expert's Panel

A collection of timely and important topics posed to our panel of experts.

What are the pitfalls and good ideas for making the transition from a technology to a market driven company?

 (ep10145)
1. One of the pitfalls is forgetting that you still need to have technology. You need to be smart and make a better product.
2. Another pitfall is that it is easy to slip back into the technology driven mode. If your company is indeed engineering/technology driven and the management of the company is that way, you need to regularly catch their attention and show some value in continuing to make that transition. Do your market based research, come up with some new ideas, and present them in a profit focused way. Show that marketing is a valuable source of meaningful information that leads to profit. Bring so much value that they have to pay attention to you. Your continual small successes lead up to a leadership role in this regard.
3. Remember the key is to “not” develop products in a vacuum. The drive for new products and product modifications is to come from real “needs” in the market place and the Market Requirements Statement should contain all the product requirements, the reasons why the market needs it, the competition, pricing and profitability data. It is the new product or product modification driver. Then engineering takes over with the focus on technology.