Product innovation

We help you create products that meet both customer needs and business goals – applying the power of Systems Thinking

At Exclin, we know from first-hand experience that product innovation is a complex, multi-disciplinary process.

To design – or redesign – your product, you need to draw on an array of disciplines and skills, from creative design to user-focused research, from patent strategy to the integration of technology.

And you need to consider a wide range of business drivers, from sustainability to competition, from productivity to the bottom line.

To succeed, it’s vital to work out how these perspectives can fit together – so you create a product that meets both user needs and business goals.

At Exclin, we help you do this – using our expertise in the field of systems engineering.

We create models that help you understand complex systems
– and roadmaps to help you navigate through the complexity of product design.

How do we help you innovate?

We make product challenges simpler

In product innovation, you’ll face complex challenges that cut across different disciplines.

For example, you might need to make hardware and software work together to meet user needs.

Systems engineering models can help you do this – by breaking down the problem into its parts, and designing elegant solutions that take into account the constraints you face.

We help you work with multi-disciplinary teams

When you want to design a product that takes into account of multiple stakeholder concerns – a challenge which requires creativity and discipline in equal measure – that’s when Systems Thinking really comes into its own.

See also our coaching page for more on how we work with teams.

We identify unmet user needs

Often, you need identify and address gaps in the way existing products meet user needs.

Systems Thinking can help do this – by using research methodologies to define users at each stage of the process, and including appropriate use cases in the system model.

We follow a step-by-step process

Our approach to product innovation involves the following steps:

Define the problem space
We seek to understand the challenge you face from multiple perspectives. This allows us to define the constraints you face, using established models from engineering – and visualise the path to a solution.
Select from available concepts
Once we have defined the problem space, we combine top-down and bottom-up approaches – as well as creativity and analytical rigour – to identify available concepts and select one that meets your needs.
Refine the vision
At this stage of development, we assess the lifecycle value of the proposed product; confirm the technological readiness to move to the next stage; and evaluate risks such as failure modes or environmental impacts, coming up with viable solutions.
Experiment and optimise for value
We help identify partners to prototype an initial product pilot. We test the prototype to measure its functional and performance capabilities and demonstrate its value.
Integrate iteratively
Armed with user feedback, we help identify improvements to the product parts and interfaces – and start successive approximation cycles to deliver value iteratively.
Launch and scale for sustainable impact
We prepare the product launch – aiming to deliver value and achieve profitable, sustainable growth.