PIVOT INTERNATIONAL BLOG

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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.


 

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.) 

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.

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.

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.

Four Risk-Reducing Strategies To Advance Your New Product Development

Posted: September 1, 2021 Is your company trying to determine if the time is right to move forward with your new product development? If so, you're not alone. Preparing to launch a project is challenging under the best of circumstances, and the events of 2020 continue to complicate matters. Dramatic economic and social changes have impacted supply chain security, technological trends, consumer behavior, and have resulted in significant market volatility. Company leaders now clearly understand two things. First, they are facing a new era of risk. Second, they are facing a new era of opportunity. Between the need to play it safe and act boldly, many leaders can feel deadlocked between these opposing positions.

Four Questions Your Product Development Partner Should Answer

Posted: August 25, 2021 According to the father of modern project management, James P. Lewis, "Projects do not fail at the end; they fail at the beginning." Today, Lewis's words ring truer than ever, and if ever there was a type of project that illustrates his point, it's new product development. At Pivot International, we're a leading product design, development, and manufacturing firm that has helped hundreds of companies deliver successful innovations to market. With one-source expertise and nearly fifty years of experience, we've learned that the end success depends almost entirely on its beginning.

Take Your Product From Prototype to Production in Less Time With Less Expense

Posted: August 12, 2021 For complex products, there's simply no way around the iterative nature of the prototyping process. There is, however, a way to make an end-run around the excessive costs and extended time horizons that often accompany it. Achieving this requires high levels of integration. In other words, the prototyping process must not be mistaken as a job for which only the design team is primarily responsible. Instead, from the very beginning, prototyping must be approached and undertaken with the full participation, insight, and expertise of design, engineering, and manufacturing teams alike.

Three Funding Strategies For Capitalizing On Your New Product Development

Posted: August 5, 2021 At Pivot International, we're a one-source product design, development, and manufacturing firm that has seen clients deploy an array of successful strategies for successfully securing funding. With nearly a half-century of experience across fourteen industries, we’ve learned that our clients’ ability to raise capital often depends largely on knowing the funding strategies that are right for their needs. In this piece, we'll explore three funding strategies and which will give you the most bang for your buck as determined by whether you’re seeking to raise capital in five-, six-, or seven-figure ranges.

Advanced Pick & Place SMT Automation

Posted: July 28, 2021 Automated Pick and Place (P&P) Surface Mount Technology (SMT) has made incredible advances in the last ten years by combining artificial intelligence, computer vision, motion mapping, and IoT technologies to provide a dramatically more efficient and cost-effective approach to high-volume production.

NB-IoT and CAT-M1 Cell Modems — The Cellular IoT Product Solutions You’ve Been Looking For

Posted: July 21, 2021 If it can be connected, it will be connected. That’s the driving principle behind the explosion in connected devices representing nearly $128 billion in U.S. market value between now and 2027. The profitable proliferation of these devices is made possible by advances in cellular technology that enable the next generation of IoT products to be better, stronger, faster, and smarter than ever before — even across long distances and challenging conditions.