SMART R&D

Optimising NPD processes and organisations for improved performance

If you are making significant investments in R&D then, in today's market, it goes without saying that you will be under pressure to make sure that such technology investments pay off by optimising your New Product Development (NPD) processes and by being organised for superior performance.

With our 50 years' experience of developing technologies and products for many leading organisations, we understand the complex challenges that R&D organisations face, whether it is structuring multi-site R&D or developing products for a regulated market. Unlike many consultancies, we combine this real R&D experience with our 'pressure tested' processes to deliver pragmatic solutions to complex challenges facing R&D organisations, from process redesign, through to implementation and change management.

Better outcomes from technology investments

When selecting what products to develop, companies often take a close look at financial metrics such as Return on Investment. However, once this investment decision is made, you also need to make sure that your product development organisation and process enable the best possible outcome from that investment; be that high quality, low cost or fast time-to-market.

Our teams of NPD process experts and experienced engineers work closely with client teams in the following fields:

• Best practice NPD processes – drawing from our own know-how of new product development, we enhance the process of bringing new products or services to market by providing fit-for-purpose processes, frameworks and tools, which create a common language across the NPD organisation.
  
  The use of specific processes such as risk management, development roadmapping and project cost management translate directly into products that get to market first, hit critical price/performance points, and create unreasonable competitive advantage.

• Streamlining R&D Organisations – our own technology and product development projects require us to work flexibly, ranging from working as one team with our clients' R&D departments to acting as a fully fledged, outsourced R&D function. This, together with our own, multi-site R&D organisation, has given us real and tangible insights into the complexity of multi-party product developments; insight that we bring to our consulting projects.
  
  We extend our R&D operating model by identifying external collaboration opportunities with academia, start ups and blue chips but know through our own venturing experience that they need to be carefully nurtured to create sustainable and valuable partnerships.

To ensure that our recommended improvements in NPD processes and organisation deliver results, we focus implementation on working closely with internal champions, use stimulating training and coaching techniques and target performance metrics in order for change to become operationally meaningful, and compelling.

Clients choose to work with us when they need to improve performance fast and they trust our in-depth expertise across a wide range of sectors including healthcare, life sciences, consumer products, aerospace and defence. To learn more about our services and how we can help your organisation, click the 'get in touch' button or explore our 'portfolio examples' on the right.