Page: 1
Aptica
Introduction
The company involved with our product management audit is Haptica.
We have used three scorecards for our initial self-assessment. The three people involved are Fiona Slevin and Gerard Lacey- Joint CEO’s- and Derek Young- Product Development Director. The reason for analysing three different scorecards (appendix 3), was to gain a valuable insight into their product development process, from three unique points of view. All three have extraordinarily diverse backgrounds, and different roles within Haptica. Interviews were conducted in Haptica’s offices in the IDA Enterprise Centre. We were extremely grateful to obtain three face to face meetings and an interview over the telephone. To deal with the three different opinions, we gave the range of scores for each scorecard, and then applied our analysis. When there was a significant difference in opinion, we examined the scores that were furthest separated.
Dr Gerard Lacey and Fiona Slevin founded Haptica in 2000. Haptica commercialised the technology and products Gerry developed while a Computer Science lecturer at Trinity College Dublin. He sets the “technology agenda for the company”. He managed many international research projects. He has spent time working at MIT, Boston and Edinburgh University. He acts as an assessor for Enterprise Ireland on technology projects.
Fiona Slevin’s experience is based on her previous work as Director of Learning and Development at Diageo plc, London. Fiona is responsible for the strategic direction and commercialisation of products and technologies. Fiona has much experience previously working in firms such as Goldman Sachs.
Derek has the responsibility for managing the development process from concept through to production prototype. Derek specialises in laparoscopic assisted and general surgery, which is a major advantage for Promis. Derek brings a valuable production and mechanical perspective to Haptica’s products through his experience in inventing new medical devices. He has worked with firms such as Advanced surgical Concepts Ltd. An organisational structure is available in appendix 4.
All three team members feel that the strategic direction of the firm is “looking for innovative technology applications opportunities in healthcare delivery”.
The company defines innovation on three levels when developing new products. Firstly, can Haptica build off/up its core technology with the new product? This asks, can Haptica use its existing technology or does it need to generate fresh technology. Secondly is the new product protectable?- i.e. can Haptica patent the new product and gain a competitive advantage? Finally the company calculates the value of the product from the customer’s perspective. This directly affects the price Haptica can charge for the product and therefore profit levels. Using these three criteria Haptica achieves its optimum level of innovation. The firm feel that innovation is vital but the development process must be realistic in order to get the product to the market and make it successful and profitable.