This workshop is to help entrepreneurs in their new product / service innovations & development, “NPI”, - needed for the start up of new businesses, and then for growing and sustaining them by achieving critical mass followed by continuous innovation.

NPI ideally should be an integrated cross-functional activity of business management, marketing, sales, manufacturing, IT, R&D, etc. In reality, for a new stand-alone start-up, this cross-functional activity has to be done by a few individuals who do not always have the ideal breadth of experience, facilities, finance, and capability. This contributes to the risks of new start-ups. This workshop will help entrepreneurs to understand the ways and means to minimize these risks in practice.

The sessions, run in workshop style over 2 days, and totaling some 14 hours, will refer to the basics of the NPI processes and its management – with particular emphasis to the needs of the stand-alone start-up.

Several mini-case studies will be used to illustrate the various principles. Each session will typically consist of periods of presentations followed by facilitated discussions.

Participants, either in teams or individually, will be asked to suggest start-up ideas for discussion. Alternatively the Workshop Leader will suggest some ideas.  

The workshop will cover the following key areas:

• Idea Creation: how do good ideas arise ?
• NPI viewed as a "Business Process" – driven by business opportunities.
• Business Models and how do they make money ?
• Making the Business Plans Persuasive.
• Elements of Product/ Service Strategy.
• How to make strategic choices on Product/ Service Strategy.
• Product Definition & Voice of the Customer
  (= “marketing”)