Is Your Company Achieving Profitable Product Innovation?

Product Leadership is written for senior managers and executives with a mandate to lead their businesses to profitable growth through product innovation. It is the advanced course – a comprehensive guide illustrating how executives can use the four points of performance in the Innovation Diamond™ to drive successful product innovation. It not only describes best practices, but outlines how to chart a competitive Product Innovation and Technology Strategy.

Leading Profitable Product Innovation

Most businesses fall short of the new product performance achieved by leading firms by a factor of 2 times or more. It’s no accident that top performers consistently win at new products. The top 20% of companies earn twice as much for their money. Their success rate in product innovation is closer to 80% while the bottom 20% of companies is closer to 38%.

Product Leadership is the advanced course – a comprehensive guide to how executives should think about product innovation. It doesn’t just explain what strategies help a company succeed – it illustrates how to go about charting a competitive strategy for product innovation. Showcasing examples from the winners, Dr. Cooper demonstrates that it takes a commitment from all managers to triumph over the competition and become a leader in the new products war.

The Innovation Diamond and the Four Points of New Product Performance

• Learn what distinguishes the top performers from the rest
• Discover how to create the right climate and culture for product innovation
• Learn to chart a comprehensive strategy for product innovation
• Pick winning new products to maximize the return from an R&D investment portfolio
• Discover what leaders do to drive their business to optimal results in product development
• Implement an effective Idea-To-Launch Stage-Gate Process.

Key Topics:

• How to chart a Product Innovation and Technology Strategy
• Aligning your portfolio of projects with your Product Innovation and Technology Strategy
• Building best practices into your Idea-To-Launch Process to achieve a competitive advantage
• How Senior Executives can foster a climate and culture that encourages innovation
• Numerous tools that leading companies use that can be adapted and applied at your company.

A ‘Must Read’ for people in these roles:

• Senior executives and leadership teams responsible for product innovation performance results
• Senior managers in business strategy, R&D, new product marketing and operations management fields.

Ensure your leadership team is on the same page – order a copy for each executive!

Companies Referenced:

Apple Nokia Honeywell Chrysler Dow Corning El Paso EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering Inc. Exxon Mobil Chemical Hewlett-Packard

Canon Procter & Gamble IBM Kraft Foods Guinness 3M Bausch & Lomg Fluke Corporation Intel Masonite Corporation

Microsoft General Motors Cheskin and Finch Mannington Flooring DuPont Transition Optical Black and Decker GlaxoSmithKline Chempro ITT Industries

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Winning Is Everything

• Product Innovation Warfare
• New Products: The Key to Your Business’s Prosperity
• The Drivers of Innovation
• Warning: It’s Not So Easy to Win
• The Role of Senior Management
• What’s New About a New Product
• An Introduction to the Product Innovation War

Chapter 2: What Distinguishes the Best Performers

• Learning from Past Victories and Defeats
• Keeping Score – Performance Results Achieved
• What Separates the Best Performers from the Rest
• The Innovation Diamond and the Four Points of Performance

Chapter 3: A Product Innovation Strategy for Your Business: What Markets, Products, and Technologies?

• Win the Battle, Lose the War?
• What Is a Product Innovation Strategy?
• Why Have a Product Innovation Strategy at All?
• The Evidence in Support of Strategy
• The Elements of a Product Innovation Strategy and Their Impacts
• Setting Goals for Your New Product Effort
• Defining Target Arenas for Your Business
• Developing the Attack Strategies
• Deciding Your Entry Strategies
• Some Thoughts on Your Product innovation Strategy

Chapter 4: Product Innovation Strategy to Portfolio Management – Resource Commitment and Deployment

• Optimizing Your New Product Investments
• Resource Commitment – A Decisive Factor in the Innovation War
• How Much Is Enough – Deciding the Investment Level for Your Product Innovation Effort
• Deploying Your Development Resources – Portfolio Management
• The Vital Role That Portfolio Management Plays
• The Five Goals of Portfolio Management
• Begin with Strategic Portfolio Management
• Establish Strategic Buckets
• The Strategic Product Roadmap
• Putting Your Product Innovation Strategy to Work

Chapter 5: Portfolio Management for New Products – Picking Winners and Investing in the Right Projects

• Focusing Resources on the Right Projects
• Two Decision Levels in Portfolio Management
• The Tools to Use for Effective Gates and Portfolio reviews
• Popularity and Effectiveness of Portfolio Methods
• An Effective Portfolio Management System – How to Integrate These Tools

Chapter 6: Building Best Practices into Your Idea-to-Launch Framework

• Where’s Your Idea-to-Launch Framework?
• Build in Quality of Execution from Idea Through to Launch
• Seek Competitive Advantage Through Differentiated, Superior New Products
• Build in the Voice-of-the Customer
• Insist on Sharp, Early Product Definition Before Development Begins
• Make Sure the Upfront Pre-Development Homework Is Done
• Build In Tough and Demanding Go/Kill Gates
• Put NPD Performance Metrics in Place
• Toward an Effective Idea-to-Launch Framework

Chapter 7: A World-Class Stage-Gate^® Idea-to-Launch Framework for Your Business

• The Stage-Gate^®Framework
• The Ten Goals of a Best-in-Class Idea-to-Launch Framework
• The Structure of the Stage-Gate^® Idea-to-Launch Framework
• A Walk-Through the Stage-Gate^® Framework – Idea to Launch
• Who Are the Gatekeepers?
• Linking the Gates to Portfolio Management
• Linking the Gates to Portfolio Management
• Stage-Gate® Express for Lower-Risk Projects
• What About Technology Development Projects?

Chapter 8: The People in the Product innovation War – The Right Climate and Environment, Effective NPD Teams, and the Role of Senior Management

• The Troops on the Ground
• Effective Cross-Functional Project Teams
• The Way That NPD Project Teams Are Organized
• More Characteristics of Effective NPD Teams
• The Climate and Culture for Innovation and NPD
• Senior Management Practices and Roles
• Gatekeeping – A Vital Role for Senior Management

Chapter 9: Taking Action – Executive Summary

• Twenty-Five Ways to Win the Product Innovation War
• It’s War and Winning Is Everything
• What Distinguishes Best Performers
• A Product Innovation Strategy for Your Business: What Markets, Products, and Technologies?
• Product Innovation Strategy to Portfolio Management – Resource Commitment and Deployment
• Portfolio Management for New Products – Picking Winners and Investing in the Right Projects
• Building Best Practices into Your Idea-to-Launch Framework
• A World-Class Stage-Gate^® Idea-to-Launch Framework for Your Business
• The People in the Product Innovation War – The Right Climate and Environment, Effective NPD Teams, and the Role of Senior Management

Appendix: Effectively Run Gate Meetings – A Good Procedure

Customer Reviews

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“Cooper brings a systematic approach to the strategy and tactics of product development…The message to senior people is this: innovate or die!...Cooper’s lists of action items and critical success factors are useful and informative….”
–Electronic Business

 “Bob Cooper’s pioneering work has set the standard for excellence in product development.”
–Dr. Barry Siadat, Vice President & Chief Growth Officer
AlliedSignal Inc.

 “Cooper makes use of his vast background in consulting and his knowledge of the workings of many companies, and fills the book with commentary on the usage and limitations of the process, using examples from real companies, and "Key Points for Management”. He is one of the few consultants who has developed a process who also teaches the reader how to make it valuable to his own needs”.
–Dr. Elizabeth Patton, Kodak
Source: www.amazon.com

“In a world where senior management has limited time to absorb a wide variety of new ideas, Product Leadership provides an overview of the key issues in new product management. If the reader were to then take action based on the principles, processes and guidelines laid out in this book, they would reap significant rewards for their organizations.”
–Bill Rodgers, Ottawa ON, Canada
Source: www.amazon.com

All posted customer reviews adhere to the Review Guidelines.

 

Dr. Robert Cooper

Dr. Robert G. Cooper is one of the most influential innovation thought leaders in the business world today. He pioneered the original research that led to his many groundbreaking discoveries including the Stage-Gate Idea-to-Launch Process. Now implemented by almost 80% of North American companies, it is considered to be one of the most important discoveries in the field of innovation management. He has spent more than 30 years studying the practices and pitfalls of 3,000+ new product projects in hundreds of companies and has assembled the world's most comprehensive research on the topic. His presentations and practical consulting advice have been widely applauded by corporate and business event audiences throughout the world making him one of the most sought-after speakers.

A prolific author, he has published more than 100 academic articles and eleven books, including the best selling Winning at New Products, 3rd Edition. He is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the Crawford Fellow from the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) and the Maurice Holland Award from the Industrial Research Institute (IRI). Dr. Cooper is a Professor Emeritus of Marketing and Technology Management at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada and Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) at Penn State University in Pennsylvania, USA.