As products become more layered – blending hardware, software, connectivity and intelligence – unclear requirements can create costly risks. Misaligned priorities, scattered ownership and overlooked details ripple through development, affecting performance, budget and time-to-market.

This expert session is designed for product owners, innovation managers, R&D leaders and founders looking to bring clarity, alignment and control to their development process. Over the years, we’ve helped organizations accelerate innovation by structuring requirements ownership and bridging the gap between strategy, design and engineering.

During the ‘Driving innovation success with requirements ownership and engineering excellence’ webinar on December 9th, BEACON and Verhaert shared how on-site project managers and engineering specialists work together to translate complex customer needs into scalable, market-ready products. Their insights show how strong requirements ownership keeps teams aligned, reduces risk and supports faster, more confident decision-making.

Access the recording and session summary below to learn how you can bring this approach into your own innovation projects.
 

Get the recording

Download the summary

The post Driving innovation success with requirements ownership appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

The post Driving innovation success with requirements ownership appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

The three pillars of a strong value proposition

At Verhaert, we believe a winning value proposition must be desirable, competitive and sustainable. It needs to resonate with customers, stand out from the competition and align with your company’s strengths and capabilities.

1. Desirable from a customer point of view

To win over customers, your value proposition needs to be truly compelling. It should address their pain points, fulfill their needs and offer a clear benefit they find worth investing in. This can take the form of:

• Convenience: Does your offering make life easier or more convenient for customers? Think of the Nespresso coffee machine which revolutionized home coffee brewing with its single-serve capsules and ease of use.
• Cost savings: Can your offering help customers save money or reduce costs? Consider LED lighting solutions that offer significant energy savings compared to traditional incandescent bulbs.
• Unique experience: Will your solution provide a truly different and attractive experience? Take the example of virtual reality headsets that immerse users in virtual worlds, offering a unique form of entertainment and education.
• Empowerment: Do you enable customers to do something they couldn’t before? Telehealth platforms, for example, empower patients to access healthcare remotely, overcoming geographical barriers and improving access to care.

2. Competitive from a market point of view

In a crowded marketplace, standing out is crucial. Your value proposition should highlight what sets your offering apart and why it’s the smartest choice. Think about:

• Superior performance: Is your solution superior to competitors in terms of quality, features or functionality? Think of high-performance athletic wear that leverages innovative materials and design to enhance performance and comfort.
• Unique features: What unique aspects set your offering apart from existing alternatives? Consider smartphones with advanced camera capabilities that capture professional-quality photos and videos.
• Disruptive innovation: Does your offering disrupt the market with a completely new approach or technology? Tesla’s electric vehicles disrupted the automotive industry with their focus on sustainability and performance.

3. Sustainable from a company point of view

For long-term success, your value proposition must also work for your business. It should build on your strengths, support your strategic direction and be financially sound. Consider:

• Unique expertise: Do you leverage your company’s unique knowledge, experience or assets? Think of a pharmaceutical company developing a new drug based on its extensive research and development capabilities.
• Proprietary technology: Are you using proprietary technology or intellectual property that gives you a competitive advantage? Consider a software company with patented algorithms that enable advanced data analysis and decision-making.
• Sustainable business model: Does your offering support a sustainable business model that generates profits and enables long-term growth? Think of a subscription-based service that provides recurring revenue and fosters customer loyalty.

A vision of value: Industry-specific applications

Imagine a future where every industry resonates with its customers on a profound level, delivering value that truly transforms lives. In Medtech, this means pioneering minimally invasive solutions that not only enhance surgical precision but also dramatically shorten recovery times, empowering patients to reclaim their lives faster. Obviously, other industries have other value drivers. For instance, in the fast-paced world of FMCG, it could be about crafting delectable, plant-based products that nourish both body and planet, meeting the rising demand for sustainable, healthy living.

Good value propositions resonate with what keeps people awake. Many home automation innovations capitalize upon building intelligent, intuitive security systems that provide unparalleled peace of mind, seamlessly integrating into the modern home. While in construction, the revolutionizing housing with 3D printing, creates affordable, eco-friendly homes that shape the cities of tomorrow. We truly believe we can reinvent ourselves to create a better world when we focus on crafting value propositions that are not just desirable, but competitively superior and sustainably impactful, driving growth and positive change across every sector.

Building a lasting impact

A strong value proposition is the foundation of any successful business. By focusing on desirability, competitiveness, and sustainability, you can create an offering that resonates with your target audience, drives business growth, and sets you apart in the marketplace. Ultimately, a winning value proposition isn’t static, it evolves with market needs, competitive pressures and company strengths. By continuously refining and validating it, businesses can stay ahead and create lasting impact.

The post Crafting a winning value proposition: The recipe for success appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

The post Crafting a winning value proposition: The recipe for success appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

Join our keynote session

“Innovation traditionally focuses on product development and intellectual property, yet today’s markets demand a broader approach that includes the 4Ps: product, price, place, and promotion,” says David Pas, Customer Success Manager at Verhaert Strategic Innovation. How do you empower a business to innovate more holistically and successfully? Find inspiration in the keynote session of David Pas on Thursday, November 7th at 8h25 in the morning ‘From ‘innovation for IP’ to ‘innovating the 4Ps’: a phenomenon or a strategic shift?’.

Let’s create new business and grow together

Innovating successfully requires you to understand user needs and set up rapid learning and validation cycles on market and tech dimensions to hit the sweet spot of innovation. With the right methodologies, tools, experts and mentors you have access to unique e-learning, funding and start-up ecosystem assets to help you overcome common innovation challenges:

1. Which strategies enhance solution-market fit for successful product launches and minimize business failure?
   Strategic pilots have achieved remarkable successes in developing and introducing new products, services and new customer experiences.
2. How do you accelerate the adoption of emerging technology and ventures, and ignite market development?
   Thematic business acceleration programs to spur start-ups and technology transfer, with a leading entrepreneurship team active in coaching, scaling and funding.
3. Which disruptive business models and technologies can fuel growth in venturing initiatives?
   Providing full-service corporate venturing ecosystems to succeed in an agile and lean manner, including training, mentoring and start-up connections.

Visit us to increase your capacity to innovate, strategically and improve the outcome of your new business initiatives.

Book a one-on-one at the fair

Visit Verhaert Strategic Innovation and book a personal meeting at your convenience.

Find us at our booth

The post Visit us at Innovation Roundtable 2024, join our keynote or book a meeting appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

The post Visit us at Innovation Roundtable 2024, join our keynote or book a meeting appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

Ever wondered why customers can be delighted with value services that perfectly align with their needs? Here are 3 compelling case studies showcased during our Innovation Day ’23, you’ll uncover how to conceive services that play a pivotal role in elevating product performance from mere necessities to sources of genuine appreciation.

Strategic value creation through technology integration

Let’s consider the MUOV an innovative tilting bike, for instance, a shining example of this strategic shift in the market. A tremendous appreciation shift was realized by integrating outcome-based features into their tilt bike, using a unique blend of simultaneous tilting and steering mechanisms powered by embedded electronics. These electronics provide a natural on-pedal feel, simulating factors like inertia, wind resistance, inclines, and braking. But the MUOV innovation concept goes even further, ensuring compatibility with a versatile ecosystem of applications and connectivity options such as Bluetooth, ANT+, or FE-C (fitness equipment controlled). This not only delivers a more natural and immersive experience but all together it aligns with the strategy of increased outcomes through a combination of performances and experience. The experience fosters feelings of victory, freedom, and overall well-being.

The accelerating role of IoT in outcome-based innovation

The Perfect Draft Pro case demonstrated how a connected system like the new Perfect Draft Pro can supercharge outcome-driven innovation. By providing user data and interaction through the app, it captures latent needs such as moments of use, and marketing campaign-related insights and allows to continuously improve the system via over-the-air updates. Perfect Draft Pro adds an outcome-based layer on top of its predecessor, offering an ever-increasing experience at home. With an innovative cooling system and the power of IoT, it enhances the pouring experience from the first drafted beer directly meeting temperature, pour, and foam qualities, combined with a seamless ordering, keg return system, and beer taste exploration ability. The wealth of data to improve customer service also enables rapid enhancements and gives insights for future new features.

Outcome-based solutions opening up the future of surgery

In the life sciences market, clinical evidence and outcome of treatment are key drivers of added value. To explore new outcome-based innovation ideas, pre-clinical trials should involve creating models and demonstrators that simulate real use cases. Standout success in simulating outcomes in the field of surgical robotics by opening significant new possibilities in the way surgeons can increase patient outcomes of the spinal pathology and increase treatment outcomes by lowering the risk of damaging tissue during current surgical practices.

Robotic surgery addresses these challenges by minimizing radiation exposure, enhancing precision with a factor of 10, expanding surgeons’ visibility through real-time digital twinning, and increasing the maneuverability of the surgical robot tip or end effector. The future of outcome-based patient treatment enabling next-generation surgical applications.

Curious about more insights from our Innovation Day? Delve into the realms of digital innovation or sustainability-driven innovation perspective.

The post The silent shift in engineering and R&D: 3 case studies appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

The post The silent shift in engineering and R&D: 3 case studies appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

The valley of death, known as the phase between exploration and successfully implemented innovation. With the current material and talent scarcity in mind, controlling this phase becomes crucial. Because success as a new product is not always a success as a business and vice versa. How can you accelerate market adoption and shorten break-even time by understanding and mastering both economic and emotional drivers? Find out during this webinar from David Pas, Coordinator InnoLab.

Watch the recording

View the presentation

The post Minimizing the valley of death – the economics of emotions appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

The post Minimizing the valley of death – the economics of emotions appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

Our human drive to invent new things has led to historic achievements. When we brainstorm innovation, we usually come up with ideas to add, but we often forget the immensely high value of simplifying and streamlining. Especially in crisis times, your innovation toolkit should include reduction, subtraction and elimination processes. Discover how reduction can improve your products and services in this webinar from Ornella Torres Melkebeek, Consultant DesignLab, and Frederik Wouters, Board Director Innovation Acceleration.

Watch the recording

View the presentation

The post Innovation via reduction: a pathway to a great outcome? appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

The post Innovation via reduction: a pathway to a great outcome? appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

Now more than ever innovation managers need to cradle ambitious plans and build a rebounding innovation engine. The reality often is that the context for this compulsory change is missing. Rather than fighting for a budget, building a new adapted innovation culture needs a step-by-step approach, based on change management techniques. Discover tools and methods to shift to a robust innovation culture during this webinar from Stijn Smet, Managing Director at Verhaert Innovation Academy.

Watch the recording

View the presentation

The post Installing a shock-resilient innovation culture appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

The post Installing a shock-resilient innovation culture appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

Higher customer appreciation

From the innovation methodology point-of-view, the perfect product definition might be the following. A product that has a long-term competitive advantage, is difficult to outperform in its user appreciation, and provides a scalable portfolio or road mapped feature set.

For years now, we’ve probably all noticed the further personalization and premiumization of serving and customizing products. They’re more and more focusing on a higher customer appreciation through specific special moments, whether it’s for brewing coffee, thee, or drafting a beer.

What are the innovation principles behind it and can it be applied to doing laundry, washing the dishes, baking bread, … essentially to every product? When answering this question we need to uncover the strategy behind it and see how this trend is evolving. Only then can we aim at creating an even better experience.

Perceived intangible values

The reason why companies increasingly focus on personalization is because it creates better experiences and special, memorable and desirable moments. Both are an intangible way to attract a customer towards buying and using your products (again). This is typically used to create an above-satisfactory or delightful experience (KANO model), and is used when the market is mature, and new additional features aren’t usually valued by end users.

More and more companies discovered intangible innovation and are playing on perceived intangible values such as exclusivity and people’s emotional needs. You might have already heard of the Social Value Pyramid from Harvard Business Review, which illustrates different levels of value here as well. You can use these to create an intangible value creation strategy, beyond premiumization and personalization.

The post The value of intangible innovation for perfect products appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

The post The value of intangible innovation for perfect products appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

Do the trade-off

The key to value engineering: set clear product requirements. In the case of my beach pallets, durability wasn’t ranked very high in the product requirements, as for my use case it wasn’t valued anyway. Downgrading the durability opened the possibility for the use of lower quality materials, resulting in a significant cost advantage, which was highly valued in my case.

Only by having a good understanding about my needs and what I was willing to pay for it, they managed to design a product which was in line with my expectations, i.e. low cost and no need for durability.

Several tools exist to make a trade-off between added value for the consumer, production costs and price setting (competitive edge) and new technologies resulting in the final product requirements. The figure below is a summary of the different aspects that need to be taken in consideration when defining the final product requirements.

Not a cost down exercise only

The aim of value engineering is to design a product that will represent the optimum value to the manufacturer and customer.

Based on the beach tennis example, value engineering might be perceived as a pure cost down exercise. It’s not, it’s about the equation between value and cost. After a value engineering excursive, the outcome of the equation should go up.

Value engineering is therefore an interesting tool to design your products and thus a strategic tool for decision making.

The CEO’s mind: “Product sales is going down in a mature market, what should I do? Shall I focus on cost in order to get higher margins in order to compensate declining sales? Or should I focus on added value in order to boost sales (but with higher costs and lower margins)?”

Value engineering and strategic decisions

The perceived value of products go down over time, and therefore also the price people are willing to pay for it. Products that were innovative in the past, are the new normal today.

The next example shows that expectations from vacuum cleaners evolved over time, forcing companies to redesign and/or reinvent their products.

What we find interesting about the vacuum cleaners evolution is that established brands – due to new emerging technologies – are challenged and replaced by new brands. Hoover got challenged by Dyson’s bagless system, which is challenged today by new comers using sensor and AI technologies, of which the market leader is still undecided.

Over time, consumer needs and expectations evolved, as the Kano model above explained. This means that vacuum cleaners needed to reinvent themselves in order to match consumer needs. The value engineers of the challenging companies, knowingly or unknowingly, inserted new technologies into “advanced requirements definition method”, opening new possibilities for the value engineering equation, and changing the market balance. The established brands held on to the established technologies which gave themselves less options to do the value engineering exercise right.

What’s the CEO’s best strategy?

Well, there isn’t a best “1-fits-all-strategy”. The best strategy depends on your goal. If you decided to be a follower, like Samsung after the iPhone launch, then try to come close to the added value of your competitor for a lower cost. If you decide to be a challenger, then try to disrupt with new technologies and bring disruptive innovation (and added value) to the table, like the iPhone did during the Nokia reign.

There isn’t a superior product strategy (sorry).

Choose wisely

The CEO in the example above can choose out of 4 flavors of Value Engineering for his strategy:

• Invest and expand: develop a modular platform to have international economies of scale.
• The cash cow: design to cost of products to the new normal.
• Design to value: beating commodity for existing mature markets.
• The challenger: define the Minimum Valuable Viable Product for new markets.

Invest and expand: design to modularization

While originating from the car manufacturing industry, modularization can be applied wherever complex systems have to be managed and have already been successfully transferred to branches such as logistics and IT.

Modularization facilitates the standardization of product components (cost down) while still allowing variety in the product design in order to adapt to local markets, resulting in higher perceived value in the local market.

Is this the right strategy though? If you are present in different markets or market segments, if you are willing to invest in modularization, and you have a technology that can be tailored
to these markets, then this might be your way to go.

The cash cow: design to cost

If you are the product manager of the company’s cash cow, then this might be an interesting strategy. The value of the product goes down over time as the perceived value dilutes (see Kano model above). Therefore sales goes down which can be compensated by cost reductions of the product. Good examples are CD’s and mp3 players, which became cheaper over time and thus extended the revenue they created. This is the so called race to the bottom, where the one with the lowest cost takes the market.

Design to value: beating commodity

This is an interesting approach when your product is in a commoditised market. If there is a lot of competition and you want to avoid the cost race to the bottom, then you might reconsider the performance/cost equation.

This can be done by adding or removing features to a product. The Draftmark drafting system is an example where we removed certain features in order to focus on the core of the product: serve fresh beer. In this system we removed the most expensive and complex part: the cooling. We designed the product in such a way that it fits in a home fridge resulting in a retail price of only 49 dollar.

You could also review the complete value/cost equation by lowering the added value for the consumer in combination with a drastic price reduction, like Renault did with Dacia. Dacia uses Renault technologies and components of previous generation cars, and thus with lower perceived value for the consumer. Over time these technologies have been fully fine-tuned and the investments have been fully amortized, resulting in reliable low cost components.

The challenger: design the MVVP

You have found a solution for a hidden need, and you have developed a new technology, then you might conquer the market with your breakthrough product.

This is a different category as it isn’t a redesign of an existing product but a completely new product, often based on a new technology. The examples below were the first commercial GPS devices. They focused at the time on the minimum added value of a GPS: your location.

As you will be exploring uncharted waters with this approach, you will be facing big risks. Only 15% of new products are successful. This isn’t necessary a problem, if you are aware of the type of journey you are undertaking.

Challenging: R&D vs. marketing

In a previous engineering job, I was continuously exploring new ways to achieve higher performances of the product. It was only a few years later that I discovered it was reliability, not performance, that needed to be changed. I thought I had to develop a Ferrari while the market was expecting a Volvo. A clear mismatch between engineering objectives and market needs.

Value engineering falls in between R&D and marketing. Both departments tend to push the responsibility to the other side, or are aware of each other’s goals. R&D says: “Added value? That’s the task of marketing, not on my budget.” While marketing says: “BOM cost? Not my responsibility (nor budget).”

In general, R&D receives cost and quality requirements but doesn’t have the tools nor insights on how these two are balanced when the requirements are not 100% clear (or in contradiction). Therefore a continuous cooperation between R&D, product management and marketing is crucial during the development of new products, in the front end as well as in the engineering phases.

I find therefore that “Value Engineering” is a perfectly chosen definition for what it stands: value is market, engineering is R&D, resulting in a mix of the two.

Small exercise

You reached the end of the article and you might be wondering if it was worth your time and if you found it interesting. Consider the “interesting” part as the value and your time spent as cost. Considering the equation interesting/time, would you consider the time spent as value for money?

Time is money.

From my perspective: considering the time I spent on the article, the experience of writing it all down, and how many people I reached with this article, would I consider this article as good value engineering exercise? Time will tell.

Download the perspective

The post Value engineering appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.

The post Value engineering appeared first on Verhaert Masters in Innovation.