Innovation and Value Management

What separates high-performing organizations from the rest of the pack?

The defining characteristic of the free market economy is a continuous push towards higher levels of performance. Prices must be lower, quality must be better, and production must be quicker. These characteristics are the price of entry into the competitive arena, but alone are insufficient to outperform competitive rivals; as manufacturing capacity becomes globally available at low cost, its competitive value declines, and competitiveness shifts to innovation.

What is required to achieve real profitability in today’s marketplace is sustainable new product innovation. Innovation that breaks the current competitive paradigm and establishes a new paradigm with the corresponding changes in profitability and market share. That kind of innovation requires the generation of creative thinking process that jumps the boundaries, something that large successful (risk-averse) organizations don’t always do very well.

There is a strong association between R&D intensity (R&D expenditure per dollar of sales) and subsequent growth in sales. Industries that have greater intensity grow at a faster rate over a sustained period of time. Companies that invest a larger percentage of sales in R&D benefit from a greater growth rate in sales than their competitors, irrespective of industry.

How can you jump-start the idea factory? As organizations continue the search for real improvements to profitability and performance the answer can be found in the team collaborative process coupled with the abstract functional approach to understanding what is important, i.e. what the customer really wants. This is the core of the Value Methodology (VM) we use, driving to identify the customer’s Value Proposition and identifying creative solutions that improve that value.

Our value management methodology provides the vehicle to accelerate real innovation that drives dominance in a business sector.

Companies that are more efficient in Innovation perform better

fairsystems’ team of Product Innovation & Value Management experts helps clients on their innovation journey both on the current product portfolio and the future ones. The objective is to optimize the COGS and address the white spots of the existing portfolio and create the correct business structure to develop better products faster.

The main levers that we use in an integrated manner are Lean Product Development (LPD), Value Engineering (VaVe), Open Innovation (OI), Component Standardization (CS), Platform Strategies (PS), and Modular Concepts. All initiatives are supported by a thorough change management process that achieves the necessary mindset changes.

Check out one of our client success stories here.