Om te voorkomen dat de goede berichten worden vergeten toch nog maar even deze
(als de gehele US defensie dit gaat kopen (:-)) Make than your breast but wet, or is this a bit too short through the corner?
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Product Development
Sopheon, the international provider of software and services that improve the financial return from innovation and product development investments, announces the introduction of the world’s first software solution that ties strategic market, product and technology roadmapping directly to the operational aspects of product development. The solution was created by integrating the Group’s Accolade® product portfolio and process management software with the latest version of the strategic product planning software, Vision Strategisttm (‘VS’). Sopheon acquired VS through its purchase of Alignent Software Inc in June 2007.
An estimated 65% of companies struggle to keep product portfolios and development activity aligned with corporate strategic plans. A principal reason is that in most organisations, product planning and product development execution are independent, complex processes. What’s more, they are typically carried out by multiple, geographically dispersed teams and functions with insufficient emphasis on making sure that innovation projects fit the business’ long-term product strategies. Sopheon’s new solution captures and manages the detailed, up-to-date project data needed to support gate and portfolio decision-making, while simultaneously modeling short and long-term scenarios around market factors to inform planning decisions. Gate decisions improve because they consider strategic plans, and operational and external issues. At the same time, roadmapping decisions are made more dynamically and with greater confidence because they leverage accurate, up-to-date details on current projects. The result is stronger synchronization between product innovation planning and execution, helping companies to create a continuous innovation stream that predictably and reliably supports achievement of corporate goals.
Central to today’s announcement is version 4.0 of Sopheon’s Vision Strategist product planning and roadmapping solution, which was completed in December. Earlier versions of VS have been deployed by a broad range of companies, including leading manufacturers such as BAE Systems, Corning, Honeywell, Medtronic, Motorola and Northrop Grumman, and government entities such as the U.S. Navy and Air Force. Recent studies found that approximately 30% of companies now use roadmaps; the same research showed that twice as many top performers in product innovation employ roadmaps compared to poor performers. Roadmaps created by the VS system can be used to project and analyze - in a highly visual manner - the future of everything from products, technologies and markets to the competitive landscape. The software is pre-populated with best-practice charts and reports that allow users to generate presentations and other deliverables with ease.
Suresh Verma, lead science & technology strategic planner for the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR), commented:
“Our success as a developer of weapons systems depends upon being able to anticipate the direction of key technologies and make the right investment decisions. We’re rolling out Sopheon’s Vision Strategist within our PMA 209 Common Avionics organization, one of NAVAIR’s key programs. The solution allows us to chart and analyze the impact that forecasted events and trends will have on the technologies that we expect to be core to the Navy’s capabilities in the future. That is an enormous performance advantage.”