Understanding customers’ needs and wants (and the difference between them).
Translating these into properly scoped requirements to be understood by the business and using these to inform product strategy.
Shaping customers’ requirements and expectations.
Identifying the joint exploitation path for the business and its customers and turning this into an ongoing partnership leading to repeat business
Performance
Leadership & Management:
Identifying strengths and weaknesses of the leadership and management team.
Focusing senior staff on where they must concentrate effort to have the greatest effect on the business.
Supporting all managers in introducing appropriate levels of delegation and accountability.
Operations:
Designing and implementing process improvement.
Introducing project management methodology and other processes, adopting and adapting an appropriate degree of formalised process to fit the business and environment.
Incorporating commercial rigour into all stages of operational decision-making and ensuring alignment with the business strategy.
Cross-department organisation and cooperation:
Identifying and addressing areas of friction.
Designing collaborative processes to align activity with strategy.
Forming multi-functional integrated teams.
Strategy
Identifying the core strengths of the business, how these relate to the target market and focusing on the key elements to create and maintain a competitive advantage.
Cascading the high-level business strategy into critical activity for technical and product strategy and communicating this to all areas of the business, with clear targets and metrics.
Harnessing technical innovation to drive product development and the practical application of technology solutions to real world problems.
Generating business cases to justify investment in R&D activity and focus effort on realising benefits.
Practical implementation of strategy and plans, maintaining focus and momentum to turn the vision into actions that deliver tangible results.
