3 Ways To Quickly Increase Commercial Awareness Within Your Product Development Team
In this blog post, we will share three ways you can quickly increase commercial awareness within your product development team. By implementing these strategies, you will prevent the common strains between your team and your manufacturer, maximize your available resources, and drive stakeholder value with a greater return on investment.
What is commercial awareness?
Commercialization is the process of bringing new products or services to market. The broader act of commercialization entails innovation, manufacturing, production, distribution, marketing, sales, customer support, and other key functions critical to achieving the commercial success of a new product. The capacity to comprehend the product development process and the various factors that determine success is known as commercial awareness. It is a pivotal ability for anyone working on product development since it allows you to make sounder decisions and grasp the consequences of your choices. There are diverse facets to commercial awareness, but some of the most crucial ones are:
Familiarity with manufacturers' strengths and weaknesses and how to capitalize on them
Collaborating with manufacturers to validate project budget and timeline before expectations are set
Being mindful of external conditions that can influence the budget and schedule, e.g. economic conditions, downstream impacts, and formulation
Setting team expectations that include must-have and nice-to-have agility
How to increase commercial awareness within your team
There are many ways you can increase commercial awareness within your product development team. However, some of the most effective methods include:
Develop best practices: By creating and following best practices that touch on key areas such as engagement, discipline, and expectations for both your team and your partnering manufacturer, you can foster agility and ensure successful change management. The commitment to clean beauty development and the constantly changing regulatory landscape have drawn attention away from other key aspects of commercial readiness and instead focused on brand profiles that mainly restrict certain ingredients. Assess your current process using an objective perspective to ensure briefs, roles, and resources span the entire commercial process.
Create a new role: The role may be called something like "commercialization manager" or "product commercialization lead." This person would be responsible for shepherding the product through all the steps necessary to take it from initial conception to commercial launch. They would work closely with the product development team but also interface with manufacturer functions like account managers, supply chain, and operations as needed. This role is often absorbed by product development leads specializing in formulation chemistry or brand managers whose focus is a brand strategy and post-launch success, resulting in a reactive versus proactive project management style.
Hold post-mortem discussions: Another useful way to increase your team's commercial aptitude is to carry out post-mortem discussions internally as well as with your partnering manufacturer. This gives team members a chance to reflect on the successes and challenges of a project, and discover areas where they can improve. Create a forum that not only reflects on past project happenings, but also draws on your manufacturer's expertise and insights to ensure efficiencies, procurement strategies, and operational advantages are all being maximized.
Commercial readiness is a continuously developing ability that is often overlooked. In today's Personal Wellness market. Brands cannot rely on the "been there, done that" learning style and expect to succeed. As mentioned above, there are many ways to increase commercial awareness within your team. The most immediate and effective approach is to work with third-party consultants who already have the knowledge and skills. The right consultant will not only elevate your team's commercial aptitude but also meet expectations and deliver value to stakeholders.
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