For all the challenges that supply chain professionals, product developers, manufacturers, and companies of all kinds have faced over the last six months, the world of business can and will go on. Market opportunities must still be identified, products conceived, and partnerships for developing successful products must be formed.
Developing Successful Products for Nearly 50 years
At Pivot International, we’ve been helping businesses adapt to changing conditions, capitalize on emerging opportunities, and bring successful products to market for nearly fifty years. We are global supply chain leaders with product development expertise that spans over fourteen industries and 200,000 square feet of production capability for serving the US, Asia, and European markets. As the world of business marches on to the beat of a new drummer, we are proud to be playing a key role in helping companies defy disruption and successfully scale for the coming future.
At this very moment, company leaders and product development teams in various parts of the world are gathered in virtual conference rooms to explore opportunities for bringing a new product to market. As they undertake this exploration, their efforts can benefit greatly from the applications of three winning strategies and competitive insights of top-performing salespeople.
Strategies for Developing Successful Products
Winning Strategy #1 — Follow the Action and Focus on What’s Next
Competitive Insight: Star salespeople target customers that have emerging needs or are in a state of organizational transition, whether due to supply chain disruption, policy shifts, major industry shifts, or internal factors like a recent acquisition, the loss of a leader, or mounting discontent in a company’s culture.
Product Development Application: Follow the action, have boots on the ground, and strike while it’s hot. Focus on emerging trends and market opportunities that are being spawned by supply chain disruption, and challenges stemming from regulatory changes related to ongoing US-China trade tensions, and more.
At Pivot, we help product development teams shift their focus from existing markets with clearly defined needs to nascent markets with emerging needs. We also provide alternative sourcing solutions for surmounting supply chain challenges, including those related to regulatory changes that mandate reshoring or near-shoring for critical or security-sensitive components.
Winning Strategy #2 — Function as a Deliberate Change Agent
Competitive Insight: Top sales performers are involved in deliberately defying, disrupting, and transforming the status quo. This means they bring an understanding to ideas that fly in the face of established norms and have a sixth sense for economic and industry disorder that signal new kinds of demand — not just for products and services, but also for new ways of doing business, leading organizations, and so forth.
Product Development Application: Place more energy into the question of the market’s potential to change (and your company’s potential to change the market) rather than whether you can immediately identify customers with the willingness to buy.
Identify and challenge common assumptions about the product you’re developing and the intended market. Then, plug a new set of assumptions into the equation to advance your exploration and reveal new possibilities. Last, keep your ear to the ground for signs of critical tipping points that your company can get ahead of, actively shape, and strategically influence.
Winning Strategy #3 — Place a Premium on Agility
Competitive Insight: Extraordinary closers know that timing is everything and put a premium on customer agility. They want to know whether a customer will decisively act when presented with a compelling proposition or whether they are constrained by structures and systems that prevent this.
Product Development Application: Engage a partner with the agility to help you rapidly act on emerging market opportunities, achieve first-to-market advantage, and quickly scale production volume in response to increased or decreased demand. At Pivot, our global supply chain network, company-owned facilities, and extensive investment in the latest digital technologies set the industry bar for agility.
Pivot’s team of engineering, design, development, manufacturing, distribution, and regulatory-compliance talent serves clients across twelve locations worldwide. Our one-source model ensures a seamless end-to-end product development process backed by multiple IEC and ISO certifications, FDA registration, UL listing, and CSA approval. If you’re looking for an agile, proven partner for seizing emerging opportunities and bringing a successful product to market, Pivot delivers. Contact us today to learn more about the difference we can make to your company’s growth.
