Do you dream of being the next Google / Yahoo / Microsoft? The next Cisco / Apple / IBM / HP? May be your dream is humbler, as in creating a high-tech start-up that will endure the test of time and technology?
If you want to create industrial strength products,
be they software solutions on the Internet or hardware solutions with high
barriers to entry,
you can reduce the gap between your ideas and execution by using any of our templates (browsing is free) and / or
the Project Management Spreadsheets. To rev up your product / service / technology offerings and to leapfrog the competion,
listen to one of our technology strategy related podcasts below, strategize, and execute...
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Platform-Services Innovation Map and Cash Cow Business Models
Increasingly, the following three strategic moves at the fundamental innovation level in business organizations are being recognized as game changers:
 Similarly, what you see on the right hand side above are two curves depicting the rates of innovation at the technology platform level and at the services level respectively, as functions of time. The point in time where they intersect is also the time around which business focus has to shift from creating the world's best platform to servicing the customers who are using the platform. At this point in time, the rate of services innovation is still increasing even as the rate of platform innovation is on the decline. What this platform-services innovation map depicts is a practical truth: before a business starts making boatloads of cash, it has to innovate its platform to a sufficient commercially optimized level, and also has to start working on its services as well. In a nutshell, cash-cow businesses now a days are not only about products or platforms, they are also about services. Listen to the podcast to learn more about ongoing platform battlegrounds ranging from social networking (Facebook / MySpace) to smart mobile handhelds (Google Android / Apple iPhone), and how the cash-cow business model evolves at the cusp of platform and service innovation... Technology Push vs. Market Pull This framework builds on the Architectural Innovation framework (reproduced
in the diagram below on the top left hand side).
The framework TECHNOLOGY PUSH vs. MARKET PULL shows how
having an agile product strategy in terms of courting a continuously changing product architecture can be a
recipe for survival in the competitive marketplace for high-tech products, services, solutions, and platforms:
 What is depicted above is a fact about human lethargy / inertia, as seen in many older, comfortable, bureaucratic, myopic high-tech firms. Frequently, the "technologists" in such organizations draw comfort from a stable product architecture and have a tunnel vision that innovation can happen only at the product "components" level. Consequently, they keep pushing their R&D and associated business / product development activities along the blue arrow as depicted above. Relying on this kind of technology push can be dangerous to the business; competitors / new entrants can upset the status quo by flooding the market with products / solutions which have newer product architectures. Sometimes, these moves by new entrants can take the form of technology invasions, as we have shown in a prior podcast. Try this Business Mantra: Pull, don't just Push. If you can push your technology, or your products along the direction of market pull, as depicted by the red arrows above, then no one will be able to disrupt you! This is agile product strategy, this is true product innovation. Also, how can you look beyond product innovation into process innovations? In other words, how can you use the above framework to make your business processes leaner? Listen to the podcast to learn more... Architectural Innovation as a Core Comeptency Destroyer What is presented below is a pioneering framework, first articulated by Henderson and Clark in a research paper on "Architectural Innovation." The framework posits that where as firms love to introduce innovations along the blue arrow (from incremental to granular), for their core competencies are built along well set "product architectures," they frequently ignore the architectural dimension
of replacing older architectures with newer ones, as represented by the red arrow below:
 The above framework suggests that incremental innovations and even a progressive innovation from incremental to granular along the blue arrow reinforces the core competencies, where as jumping across the comfort zone and going for "architectural innovation" along the red arrow above can destroy a firm's core competencies! Why? For "engineers" and "designers" do recognize when a new design at the component level hits the market. Whenever that happens, they consider that to be a "radical innovation," because they try to come up with better, cheaper, newer, faster, sleeker, smaller components themselves. Frequently, R&D departments within established firms focus on this, i.e., the blue arrow. Since a radical innovation incorporates that, i.e., newer components, a firm does not fail to notice this when it happens, or as it keeps happening; i.e., as better / cheaper / faster / sleeker / smaller / newer components incorporated within a similar product hit the market. However, if a firm is focused only on new components, new designs, overturning core design concepts, it can miss if an "architectural innovation" hits the market. Moreover, as per our framework above, a truly radical innovation is one which has not only newly designed components, but which also incorporates a new product architecture. In other words, an architectural innovation is more subtle; no new component designs have been introduced; or the core design concepts underlying the components which go into making a product have not been overturned! This can be dangerous to an incumbent, if introduced by a new competitor, because it is a new product innovation. It is "outside the box" of thinking for an established firm, which is set in its ways in terms of building core competencies along the old, stable, established, product architecture. Hence, an architectural innovation being cooked outside your firm can be dangerous to your existing business, if business leaders in your firm are not aware that innovation can happen along this dimension, i.e., along the red arrow in the above framework. To learn more, please listen to the accompanying podcast. This framework is built on top of two older tech strategy frameworks: Dominant Designs, and S-Curves. Listen to the podcast to learn more... Disruptive Innovations and Technology Invasions The tech strategy model below depicts a disruptive technology which begins its trajectory of technology invasion at point D. We have placed two baseline frameworks,
with which you all must be familiar, if you have used our Open Strategy Portal
before: S-Curves and the Ansoff Matrix. In particular, we have placed
points A, C, and D from the model with the corresponding points on the familiar S-Curves framework:
 When the invasive technology has a gap in terms of performance output from the technology and what is demanded by the existing market (at time T1), the businesses selling the existing technology see no threat from the invasion. But what if the invasive technology is able to become a successful business by courting lead users and creating a new niche market, and make it to point B, where it is able to meet the existing market demand (at time T2)? Typically, it starts taking market share from the older stagnating / mature technology because of its better price / performance metrics... To learn more about this technology strategy model, associated concepts like lead users, and its applications to current technologies / products (iPad, Google Buzz), listen to the associated podcast... Dominant Designs and Technology Cycles If you have listened to our podcast on S-Curves, you are already familiar with terms like Technology ferment, take-off, and mature / stagnate. However,
before a technology is productized / servitized and takes off in the market-place, there is fierce competition, and eventually a dominant design emerges, as depicted
in the following technology cycle.
 So, what is a "dominant design?" What might intrigue you, and what the holy grail of product marketing truly is, is this concept called "Dominant Design." Why can your business model be shaky, if you package a product / service around a technology which does not have "dominant design" writtern all over it? Are there exceptions to this rule? Listen to this POCAST to find out more. Relax and enjoy; it is only 32 minutes long! |
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This industrial strength PRD template (has elements of MRD as well, making it a two-in-one template for rapid product development in stealth mode) is focused on building Hardware / Firmware products and solutions such as computer servers, PCs, chips and chip-sets, routers and networking equipment, disk drives, mice, printers, monitors, cell-phones, PDAs, set-top boxes, gaming-consoles, etc. Sample sections in this PRD document which is fifty pages in length include Manufacturing Requirements, Regulatory Compliance and Homologation, Customer Success and Use Cases, Brand (Counterfeit) Protection, Product Requirements including Upgrade / Transition / Migration plans, Product Strategy, Product Positioning, Market Dynamics and Strategy, Product go-to-market strategies, New Customer Launch and Anti-Competitive Launch, Cost-based Pricing and Competitive Pricing, Product Localization / Internationalization, System Performance Impact, Preventive maintenance / Sparing, IP (Intellectual Property) Licensing, Reliability, Availability, Serviceability, Responsive Supply Chain Design guidelines, Review Action Items, Glossary, and References. The MS-Word version of this template, which is 50 pages long, is currently priced at $50. To browse for free, please click on the link above. This PRD template is 30 pages long, and is focused on Internet / Software products and solutions. If your focus is building applications software, Internet based SaaS (Software as a Service), etc.; you will find the template really helpful to jumpstart your product development and marketing efforts. This is the same template cutting edge software startups and established software giants use to bring their products rapidly to market in Silicon Valley. The MS-Word version of the template is currently priced at $35, and browsing is free. This e-book is sixteen pages long and elaborates current software development and management methodologies. Software build / release cycles need to take into account not only the productivity levels of engineers / developers and business analysts / product managers, but also the depth and effectiveness of the management team. Using agile development methodologies ranging from rapid prototyping to spiral model of software development, the build / release cycle can be speeded up to meet market / customer demand. However, whether you follow extreme programming or a more traditional waterfall methodology, time tested techniques like Function Point Analysis (FPA) can be of immense use in estimating and budgeting your build / release costs. Also, an attention to detail can help you manage timely software delivery by more accurately scheduling and managing your project tasks using PERT charting. |
Use these spreadsheets to manage all your projects in every possible detail. These spreadsheets are excellent for bidding on consulting contracts, whether it is software development, offshore outsourcing, product marketing temping, or what have you! This UML use case template is industrial strength, which business users, CEOs of start-ups, and everyone in between who has never programmed a computer can use to synthesize business requirements as the first step of any software development iteration. Using this template provides the following benefits:
Bottom line: Develop your use cases to the level of detail required by your software architects and engineers, and no more. Please use our use case template and associated resources for all your software iterations. We sure hope you can do it without our help; all you need to do is buy this industrial strength UML Use Case template for $15 only (browsing is free). But in case you need help from one of our in-house business analysts in crafting your Use Cases, please ask us and we will let you know our current rates for crafting fully-developed UML Use Cases. |
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