Situation
An East Coast software company was close to pulling the trigger on developing a new application product requested by a vocal segment of their sales force. We were asked to review their plans and provide an opinion on the overall direction of the business case, value proposition and marketing approach.

Approach
We talked to internal personnel, held blind conversations with prospective customers and gathered competitive data. We used our proprietary Product Success Scorecard Model to evaluate the clients understanding of customer needs, strategy alignment, product positioning; risks, and fit with distribution channel.

Outcome
Our recommendation to not develop the product and to limit future product investment in this specific market niche due to a weak fit with it's strategy was naturally not popular with the industry market manager who had lobbied hard for the product.

Our client followed our advice and was able to apply the 11+ person years of product development to more strategically aligned projects. Future developments in this market proved our recommendation to be correct

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