About Us

Consider the whole journey. Start with the end in mind.

To innovate strategically you need to understand the end-game.  Therefore, right from the start have an idea of your commercialization strategy. This drives your IP strategy, your development strategy and your investment strategy. We also apply a strategic product roadmap approach to every new product development to plan for its evolution over time and to minimize effort to incorporate new features on subsequent product iterations.

Assume nothing, let the market drive your innovation.

Don’t assume anything, even if you have been in the market for a very long time. Instead, carry out good voice-of-customer research.  Many organisations think they know what customers want but they have not actually asked them. This principle allows you to identify the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) you need to enter the market.

Resist the temptation to design while you innovate.

The most innovative companies don’t confuse core research with actually designing a product. Early stage research and proof of concept doesn’t have to look like a product. All it has to do is prove that the core technology will work.

Align your goals. Focus on products, not projects.

To get a partner to behave as a partner you need to share incentives. You want a partner who is willing to have skin in the game and share your risk and reward. Even if you choose to run a fairly conventional fee-for-service engagement, knowing that your partner is willing to stand behind the product they are developing for you says a lot about their commitment to your success.

Many product development companies have a ‘project’ mentality. They are focussed on responding to a specification, utilizing as many of their staff as they can, selling extensions to you and finding ways to sign-off test specs and close off project milestones even if it means pushing risk further back in to the project. What you want is a partner who is focussed on the same things you are – mitigating risks early, getting a winning product to market as soon as possible and always thinking about the commercial outcome.

Reduce risk by turning big projects in to small projects.

The best way to avoid heading down the wrong path is to turn your big project into a series of small projects. Each project stage has a clear set of objectives, activities and deliverables. The initial stage is all about proving the technical and commercial feasibility. To test the technical feasibility use simple techniques like test beds and test rigs to prove that the core technology not only works but is robust in different operating environment conditions. The first stage of your project should also be used to explore alternative technical concepts. Testing the commercial feasibility may well involve voice-of-customer and market research to ensure that you have correctly targeted the product at a genuine market need.

Re-use rather than re-invent

We understand the commercial impact gained by delivering more reliable products to market faster and more efficiently. Therefore we always look to first identify existing components or subsystems that can be integrated into your system design rather than engineering everything from scratch.  This allows us to significantly reduce your development costs and deliver more reliable products to market faster.