New Consultancy Adds Emotion to NPD

NPD experts and entrepreneurs Shimon Shmueli and Claire-Juliette Beale have formed a multi-disciplinary strategic design and innovation company, Touch360, based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. Shmueli is ex-IBM while Beale was a founding member of Global Market Insite (GMI).

Shmueli held leadership positions in marketing, strategies, and new product development and design at IBM, working on the ThinkPad line of consumer notebooks and accessories and the USB Flash Drive among many other lines.

Beale has 15 years of experience in business strategy and market research - she worked at McKinsey, KPMG Peat Marwick, Cannon Associates (ATKearney) and the industrial design firm Bresslergroup, in addition to her role at GMI.

The firm will also have an office in Silicon Valley, headed by Peter Müller, former Vice President of Frog Design.

Shmueli says that anything up to 75% of newly launched products fail despite heavy investments in R&D, 'mostly because they overlook the emotional aspects. Our observation is that many industries have not yet started making use of new thinking in product development and the potential in exploiting that new thinking and other global trends is enormous.'

According to Beale, 'Looking at the needs of the many companies that need to escape commoditization by differentiating their products and grow by expanding into new markets, it has been clear from day one that we need to build global thinking into our firm. Frankly, it has been quite easy so far with a native of North Carolina, a French, an Israeli, a German, and one Brazilian, so we hope we are off to a good start.'

The new firm's web site is at www.touch360.com .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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