Project Experience

Financial services…innovative distribution strategies are often the key to success with new product launches.

Client Situation
When determining the keys to success of new product launches, the entire product development and launching process must be analyzed. An insurance client asked us to examine how one of its multi-line competitors consistently managed to successfully introduce innovative products in our client's primary product line. Our client assumed that the structure and/or compensation policies of the competitor's new product development teams were the primary drivers of success, and was interested in understanding, and possibly replicating, this competitor's new product development process.

Fuld Approach
We spoke with multiple members of the competitor's new product development team - as well as sources in marketing, underwriting, and channel management - in an effort to understand the role of organizational structure, group dynamics and compensation in successful new product launches. Approaching our research and our sources in an open-ended manner and interviewing sources outside of the competitor's new product development area led to unexpected conclusions.

Benefits and Implications
We found that, while compensation and corporate culture were clearly important, the primary drivers of successful new product launches were innovative distribution strategies - that is, developing creative ways to earn coveted "shelf space" in a crowded financial services marketplace. Since several of these strategies could be easily replicated, our client was able to effect dramatic improvements in the success rates of its own new product launches.
For more information on innovation in financial services, please contactlscanlon@fuld.com.