Big Rewards for NPDP Knowledge and Certification
Big Rewards for NPDP Knowledge and Certification
Company downsizing …One of our Alumni is employed in the electronic industry by a company that has gone through several rounds of downsizing. The company was bought by a competitor. Layoffs were announced. Slated to be let go, our Alumni is pulled into a new product development project - makes insightful contributions - and is retained by the company. A year ago she was considered a hardworking employee, now a subject matter expert critical to the future of the company!
New product development performance of a major industrial company continued to be disappointing. After spending the time to attend one of NP Learning workshops and becoming NPDP certified, our Alumni indicated his interest to management in helping refine the company’s product development process. Six months later – guess who is the new NPD Process Manager with a promotion?
Being promoted often comes with good news and bad. Realizing that the pipeline had been dry for awhile (bad news) and that no new products were due to launch in the next 12 months, our Alumni began an intense effort to bring new ideas to the organization. Within six months, four “idea events” and over a hundred customer visits brought new life to the company. Twelve months later – two successful launches (good news)!
All companies go through life cycles. His company, a Healthcare provider, was in the hands of cost control management (they knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing) and in a death spiral of staff reductions. With his NPDP certification he quickly found out that his new product development knowledge was more important than his industry experience. He is now employed in new product development and best of all he does not have to relocate!
A very large, back-of-the-room Service Company had reached market saturation and felt they had no growth opportunities. A volunteer team for growth opportunities was put together to find new ideas. Everyone on that team made a personal commitment to achieve NPDP certification to gain organizational credibility and learn best practices. A number of new product growth opportunities have been identified. Today, everyone on the team is considered a future management candidate and part of the critical skills of the company.
New product developer becomes CEO of a mid-cap specialty company. Growing up in a family held company can be very difficult. However, for one NPDP alumni product development has been the path to running the family business. The credibility and knowledge allowed her to deliver success after success. When the time for generation transition was necessary she had gained support from the family.
From burnout to rebirth is the story of another alumnus from one of the world’s largest consumer products company. He had been in new product development in the “good old days” where it was chaotic and throw it on the wall and see if it stuck. Getting burned out he went into the recreational business for a number of years. By becoming NPDP certified he was able to update his skills and gain employment and stay near the mountains he so dearly loves.
When a market achieves critical mass and takes off it can be a nightmare or a lot of fun. For a recent NPDP alumnus the nightmare never occurred. Using product development principles he was ready to separate non- valued features from value-added features in their next generation products keeping his company in the lead with market share. His management team where he learned all his marketing and new product knowledge.
An international personnel service company needs to develop growth opportunities that are not just USA centric based. Creating an independent product development group at the local country level was a new step for this company. The opportunity was for someone to gain the knowledge and credibility to head the group. The NPDP certification program provided the path to gain career success.