Your biggest investment, the one that might prove to be the most challenging, is to set aside time specifically for product development.
• Can I increase revenue if I…. • Expand my hours of operation? • Have breath alcohol equipment on site? • Offer onsite collections? • Provide rapid response testing? Remember, services are products too! Te initial step in product development
is devoting a portion of your time each day to focus on what, though perhaps not urgent, is important to you and your customers. If you are not already using social media to follow your partners, your clients, and drug and alcohol testing as a whole, you should take this important first step. Armed with knowledge of the industry and where the industry might be headed, you next need to turn your aten- tion to your clients. First, look at your existing client base.
• Is your primary goal to get more clients? • Should you focus on selling additional products or services to the clients you already have?
Where Do I Start? You start right here. Keeping your finger on the pulse of the drug and alcohol testing community and networking with others in the industry create the foundation of your product development. It is imperative that you keep abreast of regulations, laws, new products, services and trends in the key industry verticals you support. You need to meet with your partners—the laborato- ries, collection site networks, and product manufacturers that you work with—to discuss what is going well, what needs to change, and what lies ahead. Chances are, the most relevant trends
and issues are the questions that your clients ask about every day. • How is medical marijuana going to impact my collection business?
• If the DOT allows for oral fluid testing, will a collector be required to perform oral fluid testing? If so, will we offer it? How will we get certified?
46 datia focus
• Do you have too many products and ser- vices but no rhyme or reason as to how they are presented to clients? Regardless of your type of business, a
client advisory board (CAB) is an essen- tial, easy to implement, and inexpensive component of a successful product strategy. A CAB session, even if it is an informal lunch or hour-long meeting with your key clients and partners, serves two critical purposes. CAB sessions help strengthen your relationship with your clients by leting them know that their opinions are important to you. Additionally, the sessions benefit you by giving you insight into your client’s future needs and allow you to more effectively align your product strategy. Your biggest investment, the one that
might prove to be the most challenging, is to set aside time specifically for product devel- opment. Exactly how much time is based on your size and rate of growth. However, even the smallest businesses should be spend- ing at least one day per month on product development, preferably more.
What is Next? Analyze, Strategize, Design, Build and Market! Analyze—Review all of the informa- tion you have collected from the industry, partners and clients. Analyze it. Te analysis doesn’t require an advanced analytics degree or program. Look at where the informa- tion you have collected is pointing. Identify trends across industries, changes in regula- tions, key employment figures and then combine those pieces of data to see where they lead you. Organized brainstorming sessions with all of the key ideas you have collected on a whiteboard is a good way to do this. Also, review marketing materials for new products and services from your partners and record the most important information from your clients. Tis format helps move you into your strategy session. Strategize—Organize the information
you have into strategic buckets. Define which opportunities are the biggest, the easiest and the most profitable. Your strategy sessions should end with short term items, or “low hanging fruit,” midterm items— things that can be accomplished with litle investment and that are available now—and long term items—those that will require significant money, time or preparation. Do not forget, many key products are services you already have but may need to be reengi- neered to meet an emerging need. Design—Te design phase is critical. Do
a 360-degree review of each idea, product or service. Tink about the design from each area it will impact—operational structure, IT requirements, pricing, communication, staffing, accounting and sales impact. Ask these questions for each of your
strategic initiatives. • If we add hair testing… • which lab should we work with? • how do we train our collectors? • how do we price it? • will our systems support it? • how will we bill for it? • which of our clients would use it?
winter 2015
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