Cambridge Consultants Blog
Outsourced product development: Top 6 tips
By rayedgson - Last updated: Friday, July 2, 20102010 is our 50th year in contract R&D. A good time, perhaps, to review the key success factors for oursourced product development. Here is my list of 6 factors. Can you suggest a few more to make it up to a round 10?
1. Be open and clear with your development partner
Put appropriate confidentiality undertakings in place and then explain the real challenge that you face. Enlist the team in addressing your challenge – the gain is well worth any potential embarrassment. Ocasionally, clients try to filter the information and it always leads to trouble.
2. Don’t be held to ransom over arising intellectual property
You can’t necessarily expect to own the intellectual property outright but you will need free use of of it for your intended purposes. Make sure this is agreed up front. If the development is being done cheaply, expect the partner to recoup their investment plus interest later in the project.
3. Ensure that the industrial design matches the technology within
Don’t be seduced by an attractive industrial design concept accompanied by a promise that the technology within can be sorted later. It often isn’t feasible.
4. Be ready to make choices
The best marketing teams are able to decide what to leave out, as well as what to put in. The worst ask for everything, which usually makes the product too expensive and therefore likely to fail in the market place.
5. Choose your partner carefully and trust them
Manage at the same level as you outsource. In other words, if you outsource a product development, manage at the specification level, not at the detailed level. Micro management of the partner will result in a worse outcome.
6. Foster good communication
Invest in building links between your team and the partner’s key people. Be prepared to spend on travel, especially in the early phases of a project. A shared documentation system is also a good idea.
