Abstract:

Two key "ideas" or messages: 1) Successful product engineering is a carefully balanced integration of PROCESSES, TOOLS AND PEOPLE. 2) MARKET RESEARCH MUST BE THOROUGHLY INTEGRATED into the whole process of product development. In other words, market researchers must not do their work, turn in their report, and then vanish from the scene to let the chemists, design engineers, process engineers, and advertising people take over. No. Market researchers—particularly in-company researchers— must play an active role right up to, and beyond, the day when the new product finally goes out to customers. The successful agencies of the future will be those which take this lession and manoevre themselves into the virtual company made from suppliers and consultants working together with staff from the core company. My presentation today will tell you how we have shown these two points about Process, Tools & People plus integration to be true. However, in order to give you perspective and for you to fully understand our experience, you will need some information about who we are as a company. So in the rest of this talk, I will cover 1. Who we are 2. How we changed our concept of product engineering, and what we learned from doing so.