From concept to marketable product

In order to achieve sustained success, companies must be able to quickly turn new ideas into marketable products. This is essential for survival, particularly in the light of increasing globalization. The latter leads to stronger competition, and the pressure on companies to innovate increases. The BEUMER Group has therefore firmly integrated an innovation management process for the systematic planning, control and monitoring of innovations in its company strategy.

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Although a good idea is an important prerequisite for successful innovation, it needs considerably more. This idea must be technically implemented and made ready for the market. With its innovation management system, the BEUMER Group tracks the development of customer-oriented solutions from concept to implementation in the form of successful products and services. BEUMER’s strategy has three components: ideas management, the coordination of research and development activities, and strategic product management.

Ideas management – a global concept

More and more frequently, innovations come to light in collaboration with customers, in networking with collaboration partners and, in particular, in mutual exchanges of staff. “Consequently, our innovation culture is understood to mean all norms, value judgments and mindsets which characterize the behavior of those persons involved in the innovation process,” says Mark Antonius Behler, who is responsible for Innovation Management in the BEUMER Group. As these processes are cross-divisional, an innovation culture is characterized and sustained by all employees. The best ideas are therefore to be found in the heads of co-workers as well as from market surveys, intensive patent searches and trend spotting or futurology. BEUMER has implemented a network of ideas providers and supporters in order to benefit from the ideas potential of the staff in all areas of the company group worldwide. The so-called Idea Scouts accept and collect all product-related ideas and suggestions and forward them to the innovation management staff.

Strategic product management

How can an innovative idea be turned into a product and subsequently launched and positioned on the market? BEUMER Group staff who are responsible for strategic product management, that is to say the management of sales, turnover and results for the product, evaluate these ideas and produce an estimate regarding the investment and the market opportunities. In doing so, analyses of the market and the competition along with customer group and added-value-chain analyses form the basis of a sound marketing concept. The staff produce a roadmap for the product which acts as a guide to future developments for the whole company group. This accompanies the product throughout its life cycle from its introduction to its withdrawal. The product can therefore always be matched to current market developments and requirements and knowledge transferred to the group companies.

Coordination accelerates processes

Innovation management ensures that all of the group’s research and development activities are carried out in line with common standards and objectives.

The R&D centers in Beckum, Aarhus in Denmark, Bree in Belgium and Shanghai are coordinated and supported by the innovation management team when undertaking development projects. The central objectives here are the optimization of time to market, development costs and ensuring compliance with the BEUMER Group’s high quality expectations.

The individual sites undertake the internal project coordination, for example with regard to timing and costs.

Regina Schnathmann: phone: + 49 (0) 2521 24 381, Regina.Schnathmann@beumergroup.com
Verena Breuer: phone: + 49 (0) 2521 24 317, Verena.Breuer@beumergroup.com