Aberdeen (News - Alert) Group is a Harte-Hanks Company and a leading analysis firm for the telecommunications industry. The company recently released its study "Partnering for Success: Best Practices in Product Development for Telecommunications Companies." The study was sponsored by Aricent (News - Alert) and highlights the significant benefits telecommunications equipment manufacturers and service providers receive by early and consistent engagement with strategic development partners.
Aberdeen's extensive survey of telecom companies specifically found that the highest performers consistently engaged with development partners early in their process and, as a result, benefited from double digit percentage increases in time-to-market, increased product quality and usability and reduced costs.
Russ Klein, vice president, technology research group director at the Aberdeen Group said, "Our latest research clearly shows the product development benefits companies experience when engaging development partners early and consistently across each phase of the product lifecycle. Aricent's unique combination of consulting, design innovation, and engineering services should position the company well for the growing trend of third-party collaboration in product innovation."
The July 2010 Contemporary Product Development study from the Aberdeen Group demonstrates a shift in how the Best-in-Class companies (benchmarked as the top 20 percent of performers) engage their development partners to drive a relationship of early and consistent collaboration across all phases of the product lifecycle, from business planning to design to product development and commercialization.
The highlights for Best-in-Class companies' product development performance include 84 percent of products meet targeted product launch dates, 76 percent of products meet development budget targets, 82 percent of products meet products revenue targets and 44 percent indicated that design and user experience have "become significantly more important" to the company strategy over the past 18 months.
Tim Leberecht, chief marketing officer at Aricent said, "Aberdeen's research highlights the benefits of engaging organizations like Aricent. Our deep experience with telecommunications and network infrastructure, carrier networks, devices, and services enables us to provide our global customer base with the resources and expertise they need to build innovative products and enter new markets."
The study surveyed over 200 telecommunications OEMs and service providers and then ranked each organization into three segments based according to their product development performance. The Best-in-Class consisted of the top 20 percent in terms of performance; while the Industry Average segment was comprised of the middle 50 percent and the Laggard Segment included the lowest 30 percent
Calvin Azuri is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Calvin’s articles, please visit his columnist page.Edited by Stefanie Mosca