Product Leadership: Pathways to Profitable Innovation

Most businesses fall short of the new product performance achieved by leading firms by a factor of 2 times or more. It's no accident that top performers consistently win at new products. The top 20% of companies earn twice as much for their money. Their success rate in product innovation is closer to 80% while the bottom 20% of companies is closer to 38%.


Product Leadership is the advanced course - a comprehensive guide to how executives should think about product innovation. It doesn't just explain what strategies help a company succeed - it illustrates how to go about charting a competitive strategy for product innovation. Showcasing examples from the winners, Dr. Cooper demonstrates that it takes a commitment from all managers to triumph over the competition and become a leader in the new products war.

The Innovation Diamond and the Four Points of New Product Performance

• Learn what distinguishes the top performers from the rest
• Discover how to create the right climate and culture for product innovation
• Learn to chart a comprehensive strategy for product innovation
• Pick winning new products to maximize the return from an R&D investment portfolio
• Discover what leaders do to drive their business to optimal results in product development
• Implement an effective Idea-To-Launch Stage-Gate Process.

Key Topics:

• How to chart a Product Innovation and Technology Strategy
• Aligning your portfolio of projects with your Product Innovation and Technology Strategy
• Building best practices into your Idea-To-Launch Process to achieve a competitive advantage
• How Senior Executives can foster a climate and culture that encourages innovation
• Numerous tools that leading companies use that can be adapted and applied at your company.

Dr. Robert Cooper

Dr. Robert G. Cooper is one of the most influential innovation thought leaders in the business world today. He pioneered the original research that led to his many groundbreaking discoveries including the Stage-Gate Idea-to-Launch Process. Now implemented by almost 80% of North American companies, it is considered to be one of the most important discoveries in the field of innovation management. He has spent more than 30 years studying the practices and pitfalls of 3,000+ new product projects in hundreds of companies and has assembled the world's most comprehensive research on the topic. His presentations and practical consulting advice have been widely applauded by corporate and business event audiences throughout the world making him one of the most sought-after speakers.

A prolific author, he has published more than 100 academic articles and eleven books, including the best selling Winning at New Products, 3rd Edition. He is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the Crawford Fellow from the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA) and the Maurice Holland Award from the Industrial Research Institute (IRI). Dr. Cooper is a Professor Emeritus of Marketing and Technology Management at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada and Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Business Markets (ISBM) at Penn State University in Pennsylvania, USA.