NEXTTIP™ INSIGHT

Published by The Next Phase Consultancy, Inc. (TNP) – January 2004

Happy New Year to you! May the year 2004 be very prosperous for you and your organization.

As we head into this new year together I'd like to share with you two thoughts – one piece of advice on how to make your product development activity more efficient and an example of how TNP has recently helped one of our clients with device discovery.

Discovery – Early Investment in Your Device Development Success

Most of us enjoy working with “new stuff” be it technology, concepts, ideas or products. If we didn't we would not have pursued our interest in product or business development. But often times we get caught-up in the enthusiasm for a new product or technology driven by our “product champions” - inventors, scientific advisors, R&D/engineering experts, senior management, our project team or even ourselves! With that enthusiasm the importance to first understand the potential practical market applications and thoroughly evaluate the financial benefits of our technology can get diluted. We find ourselves slipping back into becoming product- or technology-driven - trying to find an application to fit our technology - rather than market- or customer-driven - first identifying the market need, our opportunity to create the optimal product solution for our customer.

Of course, with our enterprise's established product lines and our prior experience we know our targeted medical specialty's overall clinical, economic and technical issues well – we live them every day. However, for new device development to be effective we need to properly fuel discovery in the very first phase of our quest to create a new device. Our discovery comes from observing our customers in their everyday work environment and asking well-developed, deliberate questions. During this discovery process our project plan should be strategically and tactically structured, incorporating such key characteristics as:

•  Objectivity - Enlist the help of objective medical device experts with no biases or vested interests in the outcome of customer and market investigations when conducting research, interpreting results, drawing conclusions and prioritizing recommendations.

•  Fresh Viewpoints - Using a fresh set of eyes will produce insights based on a different experience or new perspective outside of your organization.

•  Knowledge – Confirm that your experts, whether drawn from within your enterprise or contracted from an outside firm, are knowledgeable both about the overall medical device industry with its unique issues, trends and developments as well as within the medical specialty niches you have targeted.

•  Experience – It may be obvious, however, your experts should be experienced in performing effective customer needs assessments and market / competitor research, providing you with informed assessments and recommendations.

•  Recent Visits – To stay in tune with change, customer visits should be conducted at frequency based on the rate of changes in your targeted medical specialties – for up-to-date assessments, research should be conducted within the last few months.

•  Scouts – Your sales team knows its customers well - They are one type of team member who can scout contacts, help make introductions and set-up meetings with their contacts at key medical institutions. Then turning the visit over to the research pro enables confidential research and leaves the rep free to perform his/her expert duties.

•  New Customers – Your research pros will identify new contacts during visits to offices, clinics, hospital suites or O.R.'s, providing you with a broader list of future customers.

Proven many times, a properly planned and executed discovery process fuels more effective device development and produces devices with the greatest market potential.

Discovery – A Proof Source

Our Client's Need :   Our client needed to grow its sales revenues by adding several new medical device products to the “sales basket” serving one of the medical specialty markets where it currently sold products. Our client contacted The Next Phase to inquire what we would recommend to help their management team identify new medical device opportunities in its targeted market niche – NICU infant nutrition.

Our Solution :   This was clearly a device discovery investigation:

First, Our Plan - We suggested several project options to identify our client's customer needs, issues and problems and, therefore, market opportunities for new product embodiments particular to the general specifications of our client. Our proposal took into consideration our clients desired depth of investigation and budget. It also included the type of research we would recommend, the optimal plan and how we suggested to execute the research plan. We quantified our commitment to our performance in terms of deliverables, project schedule, project responsibilities and cost – targeting the hospital NICU with respect to feeding premature and low birth weight infants.

Our Results - After conducting visits at 6 NICU sites across the U.S., interviewing nearly 20 lactation consultants, nurses, pediatricians and neonatologist we identified nearly 70 significant need/issue/problem areas (“needs”). Using our three tiered screening criteria list developed by TNP, we effectively “screened-out” the majority of this huge field, using the course screen, getting the field size down to just over 20 “qualified opportunities.” After a finer screen we used quantifiable hurdles to get to the “Top 7” opportunities. We then prioritized those based on their potential market return to our client. These “Top 7” opportunities were defined as needs, issues, and problems they would satisfy, not as actual products. The intent was for these “Top 7” opportunities to be considered in either combination or standalone – they now are serving as the performance requirements and market specifications of the several medical device product embodiments that are currently in development.

Benefit to Our Client - Within several weeks our effective discovery program using customer needs assessment and screening/prioritization produced 7 areas of high product potential and growth. We did so in a fraction of the time and cost that it would take our client's organization to perform. Very important, our assessments and review were highly objective, as well as our expert recommendations including a strategic plan on how to proceed with product development for the next few years.