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Thank you for visiting the Pivot International blog. We are a collaborative product development, design, and manufacturing firm serving clients around the world. For more information about our services, please call us at 1-877-206-5001. We look forward to working with you.

 

Highlights, Insights, and Market Opportunities for the Construction Industry in 2023

Posted: November 30, 2022 2023 is just around the corner, and builders are contending with an uncertain economic forecast in the year ahead. But for all the unanswered questions, 2023 construction industry trend lines are rapidly becoming more clearly defined. At Pivot International, we are a global, one-source leader in product design, engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain management. Our extensive suite of digital technologies and world-class DFM talent delivers smart construction solutions to help companies capture value from the latest industry development and trends using the latest IoT applications. In this piece, we'll explore insights drawn from the CBRE's 2023 US Construction Costs Trends Report to help industry players prepare for the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.
Construction industry technology
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Five Research-Backed Reasons Why High Design Aesthetics Give Product Developers a Competitive Edge

Posted: November 9, 2022 The aesthetics of a product's design plays a crucial role in its success. Research shows that aesthetics significantly influence buyers' first impressions of a product. Long before learning the price of a product, buyers form price expectations based strictly on visual cues provided by extrinsic product attributes and design aesthetics. The visual impression a product makes on a buyer is far from a superficial affair. As this piece will show, companies looking to launch successful products must be aware of the competitive advantage conferred by products that are as aesthetically pleasing as they are functional.
new product design aesthetics
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The War in Ukraine, America’s Industrial Base, and the Future of Cyber Security — What Companies Need to Know

Posted: November 2, 2022 The war in Ukraine has sparked new debates about the cyber security of America's industrial base. Few people are more qualified to weigh in on the subject than Josh Steinman, Senior Cyber Policymaker under the Trump administration and now head of Galvanick, a startup revolutionizing the security of industrial control systems. In this piece, we'll provide an executive summary of some of Steinman's latest thinking to help American companies in the industrial sector better grasp the evolving cybersecurity landscape and what it may mean for their businesses and the broader industrial base.
Ukraine cyber security
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How to Cut Prototyping Costs and Leverage Builds With Users, Investors, and Decision-Makers

Posted: October 26, 2022 Contemporary best practices for NPD (new product development) include iterative prototyping, and no complex product makes it to market without multiple rounds of this activity. But many companies lack a conceptual framework for understanding the wider implications of the prototyping process. For this reason, they often unwittingly leave value on the table while accruing unnecessary and excessive costs.
Reducing costs
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Launching a Wireless B2B Innovation Poses Complex Risks. Here’s How to Mitigate Them

Posted: October 12, 2022 As the digital age reaches a crescendo, companies looking to launch wireless B2B innovations face twin hurdles. The first concerns the product itself and its acceptance by stakeholders, investors, and end-users, all of which have traditionally been the primary focus of NPD (new product development). The second is the seamless integration of the product into the broader ecosystem. In this piece, we’ll highlight why the success of a product depends as much on the second hurdle as the first, presenting a single strategy for successfully clearing both.
launching a new product
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Think Smaller: How Regional Strategies Can Drive Global Growth

Posted: October 5, 2022 With so much cross-industry emphasis placed on the challenges of globalism, the role of regionalism in business strategy often receives scant attention. But even global companies — and those that aspire to become such — are well-served to examine the advantages of a regional approach to growth. Why? Because as past Toyota Vice Chairman Fujio Cho once explained, "We intend to continue moving forward with globalization…by further enhancing the localization and independence of our operations in each region." Cho's insight underscores the paradox that global or country-focused growth depends on robust regional strategies. It also highlights the extent and persistence of regionalization in economic activity and its vital role in a company's business model and broader strategy.
Regional growth strategy
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B2B Sales Strategy is Rapidly Headed in Dramatic New Directions

Posted: September 28, 2022 For well over a decade, companies have been discussing "aligning marketing and sales." This has made much sense, given the traditional lack of transparency, collaboration, and shared strategy between such teams. But the once helpful idea of "alignment" is quickly becoming irrelevant as B2B buying habits are rapidly heading in dramatic new directions. The new future of B2B sales will present companies with steep challenges and powerful new growth opportunities.
B2B Sales
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IoT Innovations Often Don’t Fly. Here’s How to Make Sure Yours Soars.

Posted: September 21, 2022 Many companies commence IoT product innovation with high hopes, only to end up with their expectations grounded. Just five years ago, Gartner opined that up to 80% of IoT innovations would squander broader market opportunities, and a survey by Cisco found that one-third of IoT projects ended in failure. Since then, the space has only become more crowded, reducing companies’ odds of success. So, what does it take to launch a profitable IoT product in a market that’s becoming more competitive by the minute? What do companies that succeed in the IoT space do differently? Let’s take a look.
IoT Innovations
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Synergy: The Power of Integrative Solutions for High-Complexity Products

Posted: September 7, 2022 It wasn’t long ago that the default strategy for launching a new product involved vetting and engaging multiple firms to handle the various phases of the broader NPD process: design, engineering, manufacturing, distribution, and supply chain. But today, more and more companies are taking advantage of the benefits of integrative solutions. What’s changed? Is it merely a matter of convenience? Is there an overarching principle that accounts for the advantages of uniting each phase of NPD under a single umbrella? Can working with a one-source partner result in a demonstrably superior outcome? Can it deliver a more secure, streamlined, seamless, and cost-effective approach to product development? In this piece, we’ll address each of these questions.
Assembling a puzzle
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The Supply Chain Forecast May Be Sunnier Than Headlines Suggest

Posted: August 31, 2022 By May 2022, China-to-US-bound shipping prices had jumped from a pre-pandemic cost of $2,000 to $20,000 per container. By July, inflation had reached levels unseen in four decades. The chip crisis remained intractable, and port backups and bottlenecks continued. And for more than six months, there had been whispers among supply chain leaders that the dark clouds of inflation were gathering on an already stormy horizon. In short, the supply chain forecast was not sunny. But new signs suggest that things may be less grim than recent headlines would lead many companies to believe. And for those looking for a break in the clouds of more than two years of supply chain disruption, this is welcome news.
Steel chain
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