Hallmark Shares Product Portfolio Management Strategies

There are many reasons why your company can't afford to miss product launch windows. So, how do successful companies hit launch windows consistently? It all starts at the beginning of the innovation process, i.e., choosing the right ideas, and continues through a development process that accounts for resource capacity and mitigates risk.

 

On August 16, 2012, during a CGT web event, industry analyst, Jim Brown, founder and president for Tech-Clarity, Inc., shared new insights from his Issue in Focus: When Time to Market Becomes Critical that sheds light on ways to effectively deliver products to market within an inflexible launch window. Monica Alderson, Project Management director for Consumer Solutions at Hallmark Cards was also on hand to reveal the company’s success story. The following are some highlights from the web event:

 

--Brown kicked off the event by defining a product launch window using examples including Christmas and a confectionary company during Easter etc. “If you miss having the right product on the market during that period of time, it’s not something that you can slip a couple of weeks,” explained Brown. He also revealed some challenges from the 3rd Product Portfolio Management Benchmark Study that impact companies' ability to hit launch windows, including tips and solutions to reduce risks.

 

--Alderson outlined how implementing a stage-gate process and Product Portfolio Management (PPM) technology helped Hallmark hit immovable product deadlines. When asked about ensuring everything gets done on time, Alderson said, “We have great product managers.” She further explained some other best practices Hallmark follows to hit launch windows on time including building a retail back calendar, understanding its seasons, categorizing what products are launching each quarter, declaring top priorities, understanding lead times, and more. She said, “We talk about what resources we’re applying to what projects, we’ve set up cross-functional meetings with all our different areas – packaging, merchandising, engineering and so forth – to make sure that everyone understands what role they’re playing in this and that we’re all aligned to execute. We declare what products will live together and we know what products are going to go to what customers, and that’s what has helped us get to success from season and launch windows as well.”

 

--Carrie Nauyalis, NPD Solution Marketing manager at Planview was also on hand to offer her perspective as a solution/service provider. “Portfolio management solutions from our perspective are really an end-to-end vision. It’s not just the development piece of that product or that gadget etc., it is that end-to-end vision, starting with the initial idea and doing the collaboration on that. Especially with product planning, it’s about determining what you’re going to invest your people and your money in, and those are hard decisions,” explained Nauyalis.

 

To listen to this web event in its entirety, click here.