Ways to Reduce Product Development Cost
Small companies do not have significant sales volumes to offset development cost. They must keep product development budgets reasonable, without sacrificing quality. However, they often have smaller and inefficient teams. They also have less than complete processes and long product life cycles.
What should a small company do? Here are the top 3 methods for keeping development cost low in a small company while actually increasing quality.
#1 – Reference Designs:
Starting with a reference design is like starting the race from the halfway point. Using parts of other designs means you have fewer hours to develop. You can see some of our reference designs here.
#2 Use Experts:
Experts and specialist do not charge you to “learn.” They already know how to get the job done. Keep your team lean by hiring only for core skills and hire experts for noncore skills. In a small company, you can not afford to have people “learn on your nickel.”
#3 Use Proven Processes:
Lack of processes often leads to doing the wrong thing really well. In a highly technical arena, it is not difficult for team members to each have their own idea of what the product vision is. Following a mature stage gate process will go a long way in avoiding having to do work all over again. This white paper is a great start: Keys to Successful Product Development.
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