2010 Readers' Choice: New Product Development & Introduction
This year, Kevin Prendeville, senior executive at Accenture Consumer Goods & Services, provides his expertise on the state of NPDI in the CG industry, trends, and more. CGT: How has the economic downturn impacted NPDI initiatives?
Prendeville: Despite the turbulence in the economy clients have still undertaken projects in this space. However, the focus of the work has been predominantly in two areas; quick impact projects, often focused on reducing COGS (cost of goods sold); and large foundational programs that are directly aligned to a strategic need or satisfying regulatory requirements.
CGT: What trends will impact NPDI in the CG industry?
Prendeville: Firstly, a continued increase in private label will drive retailers to invest in their product lifecycle management (PLM) capabilities to improve product development efficiency and effectiveness and to satisfy regulations. Secondly, the virtualization of product design data and improvements in 3D and 2D development tools will enable companies to reduce the need for physical product prototypes for concept development, testing and customer feedback. Lastly, product development/R&D budgets will come under increased corporate pressure.
CGT: Why haven't more CG companies embraced technology to assist with NPDI?
Prendeville: These processes tend to be cross-functional rather than centrally owned, which can create doubt internally as to who owns the initiative. The capital investment and size of the product development/R&D workforce required to bring a product to market in other industries has forced those companies to take an enterprise view, mature PLM processes and enable these processes using technology. As CG companies generally invest less per product but produce more new products in a year, and tend to drive these processes in a fragmented way, then the need for enterprise PLM technology is lower.
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: INFOR GLOBAL SOLUTIONS
"This platform was also integrated into our ERP solution and the SCM platform and other ancillary solutions we have, to clearly represent the single repository of all knowledge around formulas and experiments that go along with it."
-- Manish Choksi, Chief Corporate Strategy & CIO, Asian Paints
SMB MARKET: MICROSOFT
"We are constantly creating new products. The inspiration can come from anywhere, but often it's something we see on the internet. The Snipping Tool (in Windows 7) makes it super easy to grab, save and share the idea. What a great feature!"
-- Frank Cerullo, CEO, GameWear Inc.