- Improve the company's overall product development process to decrease time to profit.
- Better understand the customer to develop products and incorporate new technologies to maintain leadership position.
CLIENT RESULTS
- Gained strong understanding of customer needs, prompting the company to focus on customer requirements and not solely on product features to meet those requirements.
- Established group consensus on a product portfolio and introduced an organized phase review process.
- Developed a market-focused product road map.
PDC SOLUTIONS
- Market-Driven Product Definition (MDPD®)
- Value-Based Portfolio Management
- Product Development Process
Known as a pioneer in the testing industry, Teradyne Telecommunications Group (now Tollgrade), like other businesses engaged in the more traditional economy, needed to react more quickly and intelligently to industry trends. The firm turned to PDC for help in developing a rigorous approach to understand customer needs, desires, and requirements, establishing a value-based portfolio that addressed company objectives, and introducing an organized phase review process for product development.
The first step was to assemble a multi-disciplinary team of 25 employees from throughout the division. This brought different perspectives to the project and ensured that all elements affecting product development and delivery were addressed.
Collaboratively, PDC and the Teradyne team developed a prioritized list of what needed to be addressed and established a four-point program. The first initiative was to use PDC's Market-Driven Product Definition process to define the product strategy. "Prior to being trained in the MDPD process, we were very focused on product features instead of concentrating on addressing the customer's environmental or situational concerns," says former director of marketing Chris Bohrson.
PDC then helped Teradyne develop a technology road map that outlined the timeline for the introduction of new telecommunication technologies. The road map, once integrated with the customer data to develop a requirements timeline, was translated into product concepts. PDC documented the entire process documented and incorporated it into a Portfolio Management process, which Teradyne then implemented and still uses.
"Through the MDPD process Teradyne learned how to steer away from a prescribed, standardized recitation of new products and features," adds Bohrson. "The new skills developed have become a core part of Teradyne's new product development process."