Reinventing the Product: How to Transform Your Business and Create Value in the Digital Age

Digital technology is simultaneously friend and foe: highly disruptive, yet it cannot be ignored. Companies that fail to make use of it put themselves in the line of fire for disintermediation or even eradication. But digital technology is also the biggest opportunity to reposition incumbent product-making businesses by thinking about how they conceive, make, distribute and support the next generation of goods in the marketplace.

Reinventing the Product looks at the ways traditional products are transforming into smart connected products and ecosystem platforms at a rate much faster than most organizations think. Eric Schaeffer and David Sovie show how this reinvention is made possible: by AI and digital technologies, such as IoT sensors, blockchain, advanced analytics, cloud and edge computing. They show how to deliver truly intelligent, and potentially even autonomous, products with the more personalized and compelling experiences that today's users, consumers and enterprises expect.

Reinventing the Product makes a stringent case for companies to rethink their product strategy, their innovation and engineering processes, and the entire culture to build the future generations of successful 'living products'. Featuring case studies from global organizations such as Faurecia, Signify, Symmons and Haier and interviews with thought leaders and business executives from top companies including Amazon, ABB, Tesla, Samsung and Google, this book provides practical advice for product-making companies as they embark on, or accelerate, their digitization journey.

Eric Schaeffer leads, as a Senior Managing Director, Accenture's Product Industry X.0 practice, bringing together services across innovation, engineering and product development, manufacturing and digital operations, and product services optimization. He is also the Global Lead for Accenture's Industrial practice, helping automotive, industrial equipment and infrastructure companies to digitally reinvent their businesses and create a new level of innovation and efficiency across the extended connected value chain.

David Sovie is Senior Managing Director at Accenture, and Global Lead for High-Tech Industry where he helps clients digitally reinvent their business across the entire value chain. He also leads the Industry X.0 consulting unit for Accenture's Communications, Media and Technology group, which provides digital transformation services across the innovation, engineering, manufacturing and product support business functions.