Why Partnering with a Product Development Firms Isn’t Just for the Little Guys

Pivot International  |   December 22, 2016

In my years in the product development and manufacturing industry, I’ve come across many businesspeople who believe partnering with a product development firm is mainly for small businesses or individuals. They believe that bringing in an outside firm is something an organization would do only if it didn’t have the talent or resources to develop a product in-house, which many mid-sized companies do.

This is actually untrue. Product development firms can be useful to businesses of all sizes, whether or not they have the capabilities to do the work in-house. Single-source firms, in particular, can offer multiple services that established mid-sized companies may have many reasons to take advantage of. Here are a few of the reasons why larger companies should partner with a product development firm.

Your team is busy with other projects.

This is a simple one. You may have multiple products in development that are taking up your team’s time, but for whatever reason you have to get an additional product developed and out the door in a certain timeframe.

Since even the best product designers can be spread too thin, in a case like this it may make sense to bring in an outside firm to help ease the workload.

You’re on a tight deadline.

Another potential scenario is you have a deadline that your team alone won’t be able to meet. While your team may be able to handle certain elements of the project, like the initial product design, you may want to bring in someone else to help with the prototyping and subsequent modifications.

This is a way to speed up the process and get your product out the door on time. While the bulk of the work may still be done in-house, a partnership with an outside firm allows you to add extra hands and expertise into the process. This can make it much easier for you to turn out a high-quality product while still meeting your deadline.

You have the resources for some parts of the product development process, but not the rest.

While you might have excellent “idea people” on staff, maybe your team doesn’t have the technical skills required to create a CAD prototype, or the specialized knowledge to create touchscreen technology.

Instead of scrapping the product or filing the idea away for a later time, mid-sized companies can outsource whatever parts of the process they need to.

It’s more cost-effective to partner with an outside firm.

Sometimes it makes better financial sense to engage a product development firm than to have your own team do the work. Say the product you’re developing requires specialized software that you’d need to purchase, for example, or research in a field your team isn’t familiar with. In these cases, the cost of getting those resources together could outweigh the benefits of keeping the project in-house.

Generally, it will be more cost-effective to engage a single-source partner rather than pick and choose different companies for different functions (engineering, prototyping, etc.). Single-source product development firms are experienced in all steps of the product lifecycle, which also means they know how to keep their costs down throughout the process.

You want to gain an extra competitive edge.

Today’s businesses compete at a global level. Partnering with a product development firm, which brings with it experience, contacts, and industry knowledge, can give businesses the competitive edge they need to stay on top.

Take manufacturing. If you have a product you need to manufacture, wouldn’t it make sense to work with a firm that already has knowledge of the global manufacturing business, rather than starting from scratch?

In addition, if you’ve never done business in a certain part of the world, a single-source product development firm can help guide you through the process. Pivot International, for example, has worked for years with manufacturers in Asia and the Philippines. As a result, we not only have established relationships with trusted manufacturers, but we’re well-versed in the cultural aspects of doing business in those regions as well.

There are lots of reasons a mid-sized company can benefit from partnering with a product development firm. Whether you have financial concerns or resource issues regarding keeping your product development completely in-house, single-source product development firms can help you deliver a high-quality product on schedule.