WHERE
C3 is a proactive partnership of 11 organisations in the West of England sub-region. C3 supports social economy organisations by promoting continuous improvement and quality standards.
The partnership is piloting a range of new business support services and providing expert advice in improving the performance of social economy organisations. C3 aims to influence the range of support services delivered and how they are delivered in the future.
Systematic process for analysing and developing new products and services
Facilitation is provided by advisors from four of the partners: Black Development Agency, Cooperative Development Agency (BRAVE) Ltd, Social Enterprise Works, Voscur.
WHY
This tool was developed in response to the need of a C3 client organisation to explore potential new income streams to generate more income.
They needed to identify the products and services that they would like to be providing in 6 months time and then to test and interrogate the feasibility of supplying them.
HOW
The tool is a 3-hour workshop involving a series of tools which aim to identify potential products and services that an organisation might provide and to start to explore the issues involved in supplying them.
- Brainstorm existing and potential products, services and customers.
- Identify whether products and services require new or existing markets (using the Ansoff Matrix).
- Identify capacity to develop each product and service for each customer (using the Risk Assessment Chart) (consider product development/ research needs, marketing need, current skills/training needs, reputation and need for brand development).
By the end of this process you will have been able to assess the potential for new or expanded products or services. You will then need to complete more in depth market research to develop a comprehensive design and development plan for each product. See info sheet on market research in the policy and strategy section of the C3 website.
1. Brainstorm existing and potential products, services and customers
This can be done simply using post it notes and flip chart paper. The best time to do this is before the workshop. Place four sheets of flip chart paper on a large wall in the organisation’s office. Write one of the four different headings below on each of them.
- Existing products and services
- Potential/desired products and services
- Existing customers
- Potential/desired customers
Invite staff to stick post it notes the name of products services or customers on the relevant sheets over the course of a few days immediately before the workshop.
2. Identify whether products and services require new or existing markets using the Ansoff Matrix.
The Ansoff matrix was first devised in 1957 and is widely used. The tool was designed in order to determine a number of strategic choices for growing an organisation’s activity. It can equally well be used to understand the implications for developing specific products and services.
Take each of the products and services that you want to keep or develop in the future and place them in the appropriate place on the chart.
This allows you to start to identify the implications for developing or improving each product or service and the strategies required.
- Market penetration – where existing products are sold in existing markets. Strategies might involve improved promotion, re-branding or repositioning.
- Market Development - where the same products are promoted to new customers. This might involve re-branding as above and improving or expanding promotion. There is some risk involved in this
- Product Development – where new products will be developed for existing customers. This involves a larger element of risk. Startegies will need to involve sound market research and product development.
- Diversification -where new products are developed for new markets. This is the most risky and substantial market research will be needed.
The above categories assumes that all products and services produce a revenue greater than the costs. If any product or service makes a loss, promoting it or expanding it into new markets could also make a loss.
Ask somebody to take notes of key discussion points for each product and service. It is important to keep focused on this exercise. Considerations about the capacity to develop/improve each product and service will be discussed in more detail using the risk assessment chart. Considerations about other players (partners and competitors) will be discussed using the other player chart.
3. Identify capacity to develop each product and service for each customer using the risk assessment chart
The exercise above will start you thinking about implications for each product and service development idea, which can then be placed in the risk assessment chart.
Product | Customer | Product development/ research needs | Marketing need | Current skills/training needs | Reputation and need for brand development
Separating each product for each customer, write notes about the implications for developing each product or service.
Tips for using these tools
- Nominate a scribe during stage 2 to capture comments for the next two stages.
- Keep the conversation focused. Keep referring back to where you have got to and where you want to get to by the end of the session.
- Prioritise – you will not be able to discuss everything during the session.
- It is useful to use a laptop and projector when completing the charts.
Experience
The Health Advocacy Partnership (HAP) is contracted by the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health (CPPIH) to provide a range of support service to Patient and Public Involvement Forums (PPI forums) in Wiltshire and Bath and North East Somerset. It is set up as a company limited by guarantee. PPI forums were set up in 2002 to ensure that the public are placed at the heart of the NHS and have real power in health related decision-making. Every primary care trust has a patient and public involvement forum.
Support services provided by HAP include; information and advice to forum members and the public, developing networks between interested voluntary and health related organisations, providing training and development to forums, providing accessible premises for forum activity.
HAP identified that they needed to develop a business plan to tackle a major change in funding that loomed on the horizon. Funding to facilitate patient public involvement forums was coming to an end after the Health commission’s decision to replace the patient public involvement forum’s with a new structure. Decisions about how funds would be distributed were yet to be made. HAP decided that they needed a plan for developing new products and services to secure reliable income for the organisation.
A 3 hour workshop was held following the format above. It was facilitated by a C3 adviser and involved 6 staff members. All 20 staff members of the organisation had been invited to contribute to the brainstorming exercise before the workshop.
A lot of ideas were generated so the first step was to select the most interesting and locate them on the Ansoff matrix. These were then prioritised and the top four were taken forward for deeper consideration using the risk assessment chart and other player chart.
The management team agreed to work on completing the chart for the other products and services using just the traffic light system. They were going to discuss this work and seek some feedback at an away day involving all staff.
The project management group took the document away to continue working on it. It was later presented to all staff at an away day. It forms the basis for a product development plan.
Learning and transferability
This involves a lot of work to be completed in one session. It makes a good start but the organization needs to continue with this on their own.
This process is very transferable. By the end of this process an organisation will have been able to assess the potential for new or expanded products or services. They will then need to complete more in depth market research to develop a comprehensive design and development plan for each product. See info sheet on market research in the policy and strategy section of the C3 website.
For more information: C3 Partnership