Smart Connected Product Design and Development

IoT-connected, software-enabled devices offer extraordinary business opportunities: recurring revenue, customer loyalty, and higher margins to name just a few. But for most companies, seizing these isn't exactly easy. Creating a "smart, connected product" can be tricky—and building a viable business around a challenge. It requires entrepreneurial will, digital savvy, and, yes: organizational change. How can businesses muster all three—and then shape and execute a strategy for success?

The previous blog about Industry X explained the offering ‘Production & Operations’ which is part of Industry X domain ‘Manufacturing & Operations’. This blog will focus on ‘Smart Connected Product Design and Development’ which is part of Industry X domain ‘Product Engineering & Servicing’.

As consumers, we see a lot of new and innovative connected products being launched every day. This is driven by changes in customer expectations, ongoing digital and technology innovation in areas like cloud, AI, IoT, and connectivity, and a drive and need for more sustainable solutions. These new products and the services and insights they provide, support all our decision-making and redefine the way we connect with the rest of the world. As a business, we see these experiences enabled through intelligent and connected products and solutions entering markets and industries giving rise to new services and business models.

At Accenture Industry X, through the Smart Connected Product Design & Development (SCPDD) offering we have the experience and industrialized local and global capabilities to guide our clients end-to-end in R&D, Engineering, and Operations with the discovery, design, prototype, test, and launch of smart connected products and services and to implement the underlying digital and technology solutions.

We see companies that tried to respond with new business models and services but they step into the pitfalls that typically occur during the product journey towards large-scale launch. This is especially true in the world of connected products, whereby it is no longer the physical attributes of a product that stand out, but more and more its digital service capabilities; requiring our clients to develop strong skills in software engineering, cloud, data, and AI, IoT and connectivity. At Industry X SCPDD we specialize in any of these competencies and understand product & service development and launch pitfalls and have developed dedicated service offerings to support you in launching successfully new connected products & services.

Our Digital Service Factory offering has a unique approach to addressing the challenges for Business, R&D, Engineering, and Operations when developing a new connected product solution. We work with you to understand your company's position in the changing market, identify the addressable market share, venture opportunities, ecosystems, capabilities required, and a roadmap to engage with stakeholders and the executive level. At the same time, it is important to validate quantitative insights with direct customer feedback and prove the value through first product prototypes. This is an iterative process with your customers and internal stakeholders, keeping them close and engaged towards your first minimal viable product. This is to minimize any pitfalls during product initiation. We can help you during all phases and with all aspects; of R&D, in the specific business, related to the product or service in Engineering, Operations, and IT.

Our local Product Design and Engineering offering is based on the more than 20+ years of experience that came with the acquisition of the VanBerlo Design agency. Combined we have designed and engineered hundreds of products that continue to bring our clients market success today. This is in industries such as Energy transition & utilities,  designing and developing EV charger solutions, smart “in the home” energy meters, etc; in Automotive, designing and implementing the car user interface of the future in Industrial, making equipment and assets smart and connected of in high-tech companies, contributing to connected software architectures and platforms at scale. We can support you in developing your new connected products by bringing a diverse team of product strategists, designers, and engineers that fit your specific needs and help architect, design, engineer, and launch a fully working product. We can support you with mechanical, electronics, firmware, connectivity, cloud platform, and web/mobile design and engineering. This end-to-end approach avoids pitfalls along the way and enables a smooth product launch and operations.

Our unique Product Delivery offering supports you in scaling MVP into production. We understand that developing connected products will require multiple steps/iterations to bring more functionality over time: we call this our slicing methodology. Our slicing methodology ensures your minimal viable product (your IP) is running on a foundational platform, that is ready for growth and secure from the beginning. The foundation provides minimal features in terms of firmware, including over-the-air updates, device management, minimal DevOps tooling, and infrastructure that is ready for scale and security; tailored to the full product vision. Your product roadmap is tightly connected with the platform roadmap avoiding any scaling/budget pitfalls. And when it comes to scaling, Accenture has built up a vast international network of product- and software-engineering specialists that provide the experience, industrialized way of working, scale, and competitive price point that support you end-to-end with your connected product opportunities and challenges. This international network includes engineers and services from acquired companies such as EvoPro, umlaut, Zielpuls, ESR Labs, and many others.

Our hardware platform asset is a unique tool for rapid prototyping for any high-end connected product experience. With this asset, we can develop advanced edge analytics and advanced sensing, and advanced UX/UI experience in a development and production platform. The asset has data privacy by design, will reduce wireless data exchange, and improves user experience. This makes the latest edge technology available for you and your connected product opportunities; ready for implementation.

We know within Industry X that every business challenge is unique, and that’s why we can tailor our approach to your situation. We can work in short sprints or projects, in large or small teams, in your development team, on your location or ours, or in any mix of onshore, nearshore, or offshore setting. Our methodology, local and international scale, and expertise perfectly fits the development of connected product and services for large and medium-sized businesses.

In case you have questions on product design, please reach out to our local experts:

Eric van Dorst, Menne Bos, and Ashoka Visweswara.

In our next Industry X publication, we will provide more insight into the offering ‘Engineering and R&D Digitization’.