The First of Seven Statewide Product Development Workshops is a Success in Columbia
September 23, 2009
COLUMBIA, SC – September 23, 2009 – The South Carolina Manufacturing Extension Partnership (SCMEP) in collaboration with New Carolina, SiMT, The South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, and other economic development organizations are helping to offer an advanced product marketing workshop to business professionals across South Carolina. Profit 101! Advanced Product Development Strategies will visit Rock Hill (September 29), Greenwood (October 1), Charleston (October 6), Florence (October 8), Aiken (October 22), and Greenville (October 23).
The first of seven workshops took place last Friday in Columbia, SC at the Moore School of Business with a capacity of around 30 participants. Many individuals who took advantage of the workshop commented on the effectiveness of the program and the interactive case study format. It challenges your current thinking of how to make your business profitable and offers a way for everyone to participate throughout the company, says Columbia participant Sonya Triplett. This unique methodology makes concepts and solutions taught more applicable to the real challenges that business professionals face. Jim Necastro from Andron Stainless says, Instead of theory, the workshop presented actual real world situations and results.
The workshop is based on SCMEP’s Eureka Winning Ways (EWW!) methodology, used by several SC manufacturers, that applies the research of 4,000 ideas and 6,000 innovations that were studied to discover what drives success. EWW! helps companies reduce cycle time by 50%, increase product delivery to 90%, and reduce manufacturing cost by 30%. SCMEP is a private, non-profit group that uses a strategic, hands-on, partnering approach to help South Carolina companies improve their competitiveness, performance and profitability.
Attendees learn why it is important to know the difference between features and benefits; why consumers of a product need a real reason to believe; how to leverage diversity in a company’s product ideas; why a company should start behaving like a startup company and more! The program is created for the entire management team including CEOs, Presidents, COOs, CROs, sales, marketing, R&D teams, engineers and others.
The training simulation program can help any company that is looking to diversify or differentiate itself from the competition in the pursuit of profitable growth. In fact, if there’s a single word SCMEP is most closely identified with, it’s competitive. That’s because SCMEP’s focus is on supplying small to mid-size South Carolina companies with the training, tools and processes you need to be more competitive in today’s increasingly demanding global economy.
The program is taught by SCMEP’s Growth Service Manager, Chris Wayne. Chris offers over 20 years experience in product and process development in a variety of industries. He also has experience in Lean Product Development, product portfolio management, project management, innovation management, and enterprise development and is a certified Eureka! Winning Ways Coach, a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt, a licensed SC Professional Engineer, and a certified PDMA New Product Development Professional.
For more information or to register today, contact Bonnie Taylor at (803) 252-6976 x6 or email Bonnie at [email protected].
