Increasing product development

velocity
A leading electronics company tries to increase market share by increasing
the velocity of new product development
Executive Summary:

Client’s challenge:
Slow product development cycle
caused a variety of problems:
• Fragmented decision making
authority among development
team
• Lack of synchronization between
hardware and software schedules
• Priorities around engineering
capabilities rather than market
needs
• Antiquated processes relying on
checklists vs. workflow

Technology
Consulting
December 2014
With the company losing
market share and revenue…
they needed to accelerate
their product development
cycle…
PwC’s solution:
Create multi-functional design team
to develop new development
methodology and instill new
market-driven culture.
• Develop core and extended team
model with clearly defined role
• Assign accountable leader
• Simplify & streamline the
processes to be workflow-based
• Executive commitment and
support
• Controlled piloting of new
methodology
Business impact:
• Adopting Core/Extended team
model led to clearer
communication and faster
decision making
• Pilot tests indicate 20%
improvement in time to market
• Simplified processes and defined
team roles have improved
qualitative measures of employee
satisfaction and confidence
Client’s challenge:
A slow product development cycle
caused a variety of problems for a
leading electronics company, with
over $7 billion in annual sales. The
company appeared unresponsive to
market needs and demands, as its
products arrived late in market cycles.
With the company losing market
share and revenue, ultimately its
competitiveness was threatened.
Failure to address this problem put
the company’s long term growth
prospects at risk. They needed to
accelerate their product development
cycle, but had neither the specific
skills nor the necessary perspective to
do so on their own.
PwC’s Solution:
PwC assembled a team that included
industry veterans, with deep
knowledge of product development
methodologies, who assessed the
company’s product development
process leveraging PwC’s product
development assessment framework.
The key reasons for the delayed
development life-cycles were (1)
fragmented decision making authority
among the development team
members, (2) conflict between
product management and
development teams, (3) Lack of
synchronization between hardware
and software schedules, (4)
Engineering capabilities as opposed to
anticipated market needs guiding key
product decisions, and (5) antiquated
processes relying on checklists rather
than workflows. In short, this multi-
billion dollar, 12,000-plus employee
company ran product development
based on archaic product
development methodologies.
PwC and the client created a multi-
functional design team to develop a
new development methodology.
Drawing on both PwC's leading
practices and the company's expertise,
a design team was constituted with
functional specialists in hardware,
software, product development,
2 Consulting
operations, and services. The design program to stress test the new
team came up with a series of development methodology. PwC not
recommendations: only conducted over 20 training
sessions for more than 100 key players
1. Develop a core and extended (including both executive leadership
team model with clearly defined and product development engineers)
roles and responsibilities in the product design process, but also
facilitated and assisted the new
2. Assign an accountable leader with development teams in executing the
responsibility for the process and process. This involved PwC providing
the authority to make decisions hands-on coaching as well as
developing key project deliverables
3. Simplify and streamline the such as Marketing Requirements
processes, and update them to be Documents. The Pilot programs
workflow-based – primarily to get helped overcome resistance to change
rid of the “checklist robot and build acceptance of the new
mentality” product development methodology.
4. Revamp the Phase Exit Review
process
However, fixing the process would
involve more than just diagnosing the
problem and proposing a solution. To
truly address the long time-to-market
issue, a new, market-driven culture
needed to be instilled in the product
development teams. To promote
success, two key tasks were imperative
 Executive commitment and
support to the new development
methodology
 Controlled piloting of the new
methodology using high profile
development projects
PwC planned and managed a pilot
…this multi-billion dollar,
12,000-plus employee company
ran product development based
on archaic product development
methodologies.
…fixing the process would
involve more than just
diagnosing the problem and
proposing a solution.
December 2014
 Impact on client’s While the results of the new process
business: are yet to be measured fully owing to
the 18-24 month long development
As a result of this engagement, the cycle, the pilot programs that began in
client instituted leading product January 2014 are on track to realizing
development practices: 20% or more reduction in time-to-
While the results of the market. Qualitative feedback
new process are yet to be 1. Adopting the Core/Extended indicates that employees believe that
measured fully owing to team model with clearly defined the product development process is
roles for each member, facilitated simpler, the teams are better
the 18-24 month long clearer communication and faster empowered to manage the process,
development cycle, the decision making and more importantly, that the new
pilot programs that began process will improve the firm's
2. Updating the workflows product success rate.
in January 2014 are on simplified the process, facilitated
track to realizing 20% or consistency, and reduced
more reduction in time- execution delays
to-market. 3. Assigning a core team leader with
ultimate product responsibility
established a culture of
accountability with desired
market focus

4. Aligning individual incentives to

common product development
goals helped to establish that
ground-level decisions were made
in the best interest of the business

5. Aligning hardware releases to

Software Release trains

For more information, please visit

www.pwc.com/us/consulting

Or contact
Rakesh Mehrotra
Thomas Archer
Director
Partner
(408) 230-1088
(408) 316-1558
rakesh.mehrotra@us.pwc.com
thomas.archer@us.pwc.com

© 2014 PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. All rights reserved. PwC refers to the United States member firm, and may sometimes refer to the PwC network.
Each member firm is a separate legal entity. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details. This content is for general information purposes only,
and should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional advisors.