Welcome to the Arkaro Insights podcast. We've utilised AI technology to transform our written expertise into this conversational format for your convenience, making our insights on product launch failures more accessible and engaging.

When faced with product launch disappointments, executives instinctively look for immediate causes. All too often, they point to the commercial launch phase as the culprit—questioning marketing materials, sales training, or launch event execution. This is a crucial insight: leaders tend to blame the phase they are currently experiencing, forgetting everything that has happened before in the innovation journey.

But is the commercial launch really where most product failures originate? After working with dozens of companies across Agriculture, Food, and Chemicals industries, we've found that while execution of the commercial launch certainly matters, the seeds of failure are typically planted much earlier in the innovation process.

The 7 Hidden Root Causes

In this episode, we explore the seven critical failure points that typically emerge early in the innovation journey—long before the launch phase that executives tend to blame:

1. Lack of Collaborative Culture

2. Absence of Clear Innovation Strategy

3. Weak Value Proposition

4. Flawed Business Models

5. Inadequate Prototyping

6. Problematic Scale-Up

7. Poor Governance

The Arkaro Approach

At Arkaro, our "do it with you" approach helps clients build innovation capabilities by addressing these core failure points holistically. We focus on aligning innovation with business strategy, applying Jobs to be Done methodology to understand customer needs, generating ideas targeted at validated problems, implementing agile stage-gated processes that validate assumptions early, building sustainable innovation governance, and fostering cross-functional collaboration.

Why consider an external partner like Arkaro?
Even if you suspect your product launch challenges extend beyond the commercial phase, addressing these fundamental issues can be difficult from within.

Changing organisational fundamentals is hard work. Transforming collaborative culture, innovation strategy, or governance requires both expertise and persistence. While you may recognise the problems, implementing solutions demands significant time and focus that your team may not have alongside their day-to-day responsibilities.

Internal teams often struggle to see, accept, or challenge embedded practices. Organisational blind spots, existing power dynamics, and the challenge of speaking truth to leadership can make it difficult for insiders to drive fundamental change. Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to ask the uncomfortable questions and highlight what internal teams already suspect but haven't been able to address.

This is why an outside partner who truly understands the challenges and will work alongside you makes all the difference. At Arkaro, we don't deliver theoretical frameworks and walk away. We bring both the external perspective needed to identify root causes and the practical, collaborative approach required to implement lasting solutions. We get on the pitch with you—working side by side to transform your innovation system while building your team's capabilities.

Are you experiencing challenges with product launches in your organisation? Do you suspect the issues lie deeper than commercial execution but need help addressing them effectively?

Contact us at [email protected] or visit www.arkaro.com to discuss how our "do it with you" approach can you.

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