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Thank you for visiting the Pivot International blog. We are a collaborative product development, design, and manufacturing firm serving clients around the world. For more information about our services, please call us at 1-877-206-5001. We look forward to working with you.

 

Peak Performance Optimization vs Peak Resource Utilization

Posted: December 1, 2021 Nearly everyone is familiar with the metaphor of “running on all cylinders,” understanding it to refer to the idea of peak performance optimization — something that all companies strive to attain. But when applied to new product development (NPD), this metaphor can be dangerously misleading. Why? Because running your NPD on all cylinders (aiming for peak resource utilization) can generate the opposite effect.  
Confusion
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Ten Questions for Assessing Your Product Requirements

Posted: November 24, 2021 Use case — the case made for how a user interacts with a product or system — is essential to the broader product development process. But the path to building a reliable use case depends on something more fundamental: establishing product requirements. In this piece, we’ll first explain why it makes sense to look at product requirements separately from the use case. Then, we’ll provide a brief overview of the two types of product requirements. Lastly, we’ll provide ten questions to help you assess your product requirements.
Product Requirements
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Supply Chain Crisis Threatening Your NPD? There May Be a Way Forward

Posted: November 17, 2021 At Pivot International, well before the current crisis began taking shape, we developed a reputation as a leading global new product development (NPD) partner with disruption-defying capabilities. Since the pandemic's peak, our reputation has only grown, and today, we continue to provide strategies that help buffer our partners from impact. In the shorter term, if a way forward is to be found, it will likely lie in domestic sourcing and engineering workarounds. In this piece, we'll explore both strategies to help you determine if they may benefit your business.
empty store shelves
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Rebuilding US Supply Chain: Shorter-Term Tactics and Longer-Term Strategies

Posted: November 3, 2021 Contrary to popular belief, the current supply chain crisis has not been caused by the global pandemic. As early as April 2020, Nassim Taleb — widely regarded as the world's preeminent risk analyst — argued correctly that the coming crisis would not be a pandemic-driven black swan event but rather an entirely predictable case of the proverbial chickens coming home to roost. (Chickens representing 30 years of unchecked globalism.) Nassim’s predictive power is based on insights drawn from the sciences of complexity — sciences that have long understood that complex systems such as the global supply chain are inherently fragile. The non-linearity of such systems means there is no single cause of, nor cure for, the current crisis, lying as it does at the heart of US supply chain models and infrastructure. This means that without a systemic focus on rebuilding these models and infrastructure, solutions will be short-lived and unsustainable.
Supply chain
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Wi-Fi 6: New Market Opportunities for Cross-Industry Applications

Posted: October 27, 2021 Wi-Fi 6 is receiving more and more press, and for good reason. Wi-Fi 6 is the future of wireless and IoT, and companies should be paying attention. According to market intelligence and advisory firm Mordor Intelligence, the global IoT market will reach USD 1,386.06 billion by 2026, up from USD 761.4 billion in 2020. As innovations relying on Wi-Fi and IoT technologies continue to increase and dominate the market, Wi-Fi 6 is unlocking new possibilities for product development.
Wi-Fi 6 Concept
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A Five-Pronged Approach to Driving Down COGS

Posted: October 21, 2021 There’s nothing complex about the concept of COGS (the cost of goods sold). But what can become incredibly complex is devising strategic solutions for driving them down. This is a core challenge in developing any new product since the lower the COGS, the greater the potential for ROI. At Pivot International, we’re a one-source global leader in the areas of product design, development, manufacturing, and distribution. With a half-century of DFM experience that spans fourteen industries, we help companies worldwide solve complex cost equations by taking a five-pronged approach to driving down COGS.
COGS
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Which of These Seven Leaders are You?

Posted: October 6, 2021 Have you ever given much thought to your leadership style? Maybe you've been exposed to management studies on the topic, or even taken an assessment. But have you ever wondered what accounts for your leadership style? Have you ever wondered if it's fairly innate vs. acquired, to what degree you can change it, and if it has much bearing on your bottom line?  At Pivot International, our executive team brings more than 250 years of combined leadership experience. At all levels of management, we understand that leadership is about so much more than how we run our organization and manage our teams — it's also about ensuring that clients successfully capitalize on opportunity. (Especially in times of sourcing instability, market volatility, and techno-economic inflection points.) 
Leadership
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Seeking Investment Capital For Your NPD?

Posted: September 29, 2021 When pitching a product to investors, even the smartest people make mistakes that can cost them their funding. This is easy to do since a product innovation mindset is different from an investment mindset. The individuals most central to product innovation are naturally concerned with and focused on the product itself: what it is, how it works, why it’s superior to competitor products, and so forth. (In other words, they approach the product from an end-user perspective.) However, investors approach the investment proposition from a very different perspective. Because they rarely are interested in becoming end users, they come to the table seeking information that typically has little to do with the product itself.
Business presentation
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Five Non-Negotiables When Vetting a New Product Development Partner

Posted: September 22, 2021 Bringing a new product to market always involves some degree of risk. For medical and industrial innovations or complex consumer products, the stakes are even higher. Although many factors determine a product’s market success, the right product development partner plays an essential and central role. For this reason, most companies conduct extensive due diligence in vetting and selecting a partner. Unfortunately, only later do some companies realize their partner was not an ideal choice. When this occurs, it’s generally due to not knowing how to identify the “non-negotiables.” Here are the top five you’ll need to look for and verify.
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Critical Questions to Answer When Selecting a Domestic Manufacturing Partner

Posted: September 8, 2021 Selecting a manufacturing partner has become increasingly challenging in the wake of pandemic-driven economic and regulatory changes. While the choice to offshore manufacturing used to be all but a foregone conclusion, businesses are increasingly confronted with complex cost equations that call this choice into serious question. And for companies at the beginning of new product development, the choice can be even more complex.
domestic manufacturing partner
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