Given just how important new product launches are to the value creation process, I thought it worth sharing seven of the most important lessons learned during my years in the trenches, as a CEO, and as a consultant.

To make things easier, I’ll use a recent success story to help illustrate these lessons – each of which played a significant role in the launch of a new platform.

Some background: the company in question already enjoyed broad-based adoption of its sophisticated electronics. But the rapid evolution of technology being what it is, a market disruption prompted the need for the wholesale reengineering and national field replacement of a complete product range on an extremely ambitious time table – the existing suite of products would be obsolete (non-functional) in 42 months.

Encompassing six products covering multiple end applications, closer inspection revealed a number of issues that had to be addressed, including:

• The existing products were poorly designed and expensive to produce
• The engineering team was overwhelmed with multiple projects and shifting priorities
• The commercial team was increasingly […]