Our Summit Precision Innovation^® Systems produce actionable next generation products, new product categories and technical breakthroughs.

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Precision Innovation produces market-qualified, high value, breakthrough innovations and accelerates their development and speed to market by generating, for the Client, collaborations with leading value-chain players. ISIS clients use Precision Innovation to develop next-generation new products, services and entirely new business concepts for consumer, industrial and institutional markets.

The effectiveness of Precision Innovation is made possible by combining high level market and technology inputs with a proprietary and disciplined creativity process, then subjecting it to a venture capitalist-like assessment regime for real-world analysis and prioritization.

First developed by ISIS CEO and founder Dick Siegel in the late 1970s to profile next generation telephones for AT&T, the System has been commissioned to develop breakthrough innovations for diverse market leaders such as Cigna Insurance, Levi Strauss, Kimberly-Clark and Best Foods.

Traditional innovation work and "brainstorming" often wind up generating an unmanageable number of "blue sky" ideas and focus more on process than on achieving commercially actionable results. Precision Innovation systems incorporate in-depth participation from:

1. Selected Opinion Leading value-chain players in the Market,

2. Opinion Leading engineers, scientists and/or industrial designers,

3. Opinion Leading End-Users/Consumers, and

4. The Client's top technologists, marketers and designers...

to achieve its powerful on-target, real-world results. As with all Summit Business Development Systems, Precision Innovation is highly systematic and conducted within a predefined universe of client-set parameters so as to ensure a high percentage of relevant, actionable ideas for rapid commercialization. In business-to-business (B2B) Programs, Innovation is combined with immediate Commercialization, since participating Industry Opinion Leaders become the first joint development partners/customers for the new innovations.

Precision Innovation Programs are tailored to accommodate various sources of insight and knowledge such as in-house client specialists, outside teams of cross-functional/multi-disciplinary specialists, and high level Industry Opinion Leaders. The ISIS approach provides for and encourages close client management involvement to facilitate decision making and rapid action.

Since Precision Innovation is tailored to each client's situation and needs, Programs vary in timing, complexity, and cost. Total turn around time for a typical Innovation plus Commercialization Program, employing a cluster of Opinion Leader Probes, is 5 to 8 months, depending on end-user market(s) and the utility of continued market involvement. The following work steps/milestones represent an example of a Precision Innovation/Commercialization system.

1. Planning Workshops: A 3-6 person Client Management Team and a 2-3 person Senior ISIS Team meet for 6 to 7 days to define, in writing, detailed business objectives, commercialization criteria and agree upon what an actionable innovation will "look like" to the Client.

2. Market Intelligence & Panelist Recruiting: ISIS screens Opinion Leaders within the value-chain of the targeted market(s) to determine the source and identity of Panelists for Opinion Leader (OL) Probes. Upon Client approval, Panelists for 3 to 4 OL Probes (each consisting of 8 Panelists) are chosen. The type and source of these Opinion Leaders is determined according to the specific product, market and geographical scope of the Program.

3. Panel Preparation: Briefing Documents are prepared and provided in advance to Panelists of each Opinion Leader Probe.

4. Probe Strategies: Strategies for conduct of each Probe including creative tools and stimuli are generated. Appropriate facilitation, creativity enhancement, and group dynamics exercises are determined. All Probes are videotaped for later review.

5. Facilitation of Probes: Each Probe is conducted by a 2-person senior ISIS facilitation team. The OL Probes are normally conducted at a conference center over a period of one week. A Technical Advisor from the Client is sometimes involved.

6. OL Probes Review and Focusing: A 5-day debriefing, ideation enhancement and prioritization of the Probes' output is conducted by the combined ISIS and Client Program Teams. Next commercial action plans with selected Panelist companies are created.

7. Commercial Transition: Commercial Transition Workshops are conducted with appropriate OL Probe Panelists and their management colleagues to fine-tune and launch commercial development programs of new innovations. Some Panelists' companies will be the market-entry customers in business-to-business Programs. Focus Groups are also conducted with consumer and some business-to-business Programs, in parallel with the Commercial Transition Workshops.

8. Commercial Planning Workshops: 3 to 5 days of analysis, refinement and prioritization of commercial development programs involving internal and external resources to enhance speed-of-development and speed-to-market.

Precision Innovation typically generates a balance of short-term commercially actionable innovations, along with longer-term breakthroughs requiring new technology development and/or acquisitions or technology licenses. The Client determines the emphasis ISIS places on short-term vs longer-term innovation concept development. Precision Innovation is available in 4 service configurations addressing the range of requirements that exist in consumer, industrial and institutional product innovation.