| Have the Next Big Idea?
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Have the Next Big Idea?

10 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Moving Forward With Your Business Idea

1. How did you come up with the idea?

  • Looking for a way to make money?
  • Realizing your own dream?
  • Solving a real problem you and/or your friends have?
  • Are you passionate about it?

“You never achieve success unless you like what you are doing.” –Dale Carnegie

2. Is there a real need for it?

  • What pain point(s) are you removing for customers that are not presently met by another product or service?
  • Is the relative priority of this pain point significant enough that people would be willing to pay money to solve it?
  • Was the pain point identified by real people or something you thought up?
  • What immediate or short-term gains or results will customers anticipate? Long-range? Are the projected returns adequate?
  • What are the faults and limitations of your idea? Are there any problems it might create? Are the risk factors acceptable?

“The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions.” – Anthony Jay

3. Is your idea a unique, new concept or an adaptation?

  • What are the unique factors/differentiators of your idea compared to alternatives?
  • Is it easily imitated or copied?
  • Could you offer several variations of the idea?
  • Have you checked the idea for faults or limitations?
  • To what extent does the sale or use of your idea depend on an external factor such as another product, process, service, system, technology, person, or organization?

“If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise.” –Robert Fritz

4. Are there any patents, monopolies, laws, standards, or regulations that are relevant to your idea?

  • How many?
  • Who holds/enforces them?
  • Can you work with them or around them?
  • Can you partner with the patent holder(s)?

“What we see depends mainly on what we look for.” –John Lubbock

5. Is there a market for it?

  • Is it new, mature, growing, or shrinking?
  • How big is it? What are the optimistic and pessimistic values at 1-2-3 years? What does the market fluctuation look like?
  • Is it based on a trend? Is there a timing factor?
  • Is the market ready for it?
  • Does your idea have a natural sales appeal?
  • Can customers afford it? Will they buy it?
  • How vulnerable is your idea to the negotiating leverage of customers?

“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats.” – Howard Aiken

6. Who is your ideal customer?

  • What are their specific characteristics for the primary and each secondary segment?
  • What are their unmet needs?
  • What are the key customer values that will drive the purchasing process?
  • What was their motivation in purchasing a similar product or service?

“Failure comes when you don’t listen. You can’t put something out there and assume it’s great. It’s up to us to make sure we’re listening to improve our chances for success-if not this time, next time.” –Alan Lewis

7. How will you reach your ideal customer?

  • Retail? E-Commerce? Events? Direct?
  • Social media? Print? Mobile? Email?
  • Local? National International?
  • Where will you get your business leads from and at what cost?

“We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.” –From the Talmud

8. What does the competition look like?

  • Direct and Indirect
    • Who are they?
    • How long have they been in the market?
    • What is the market share of each?
    • What are their marketing methods?
    • How big are they?
  • Can you be competitive?

“Erroneous assumptions can be disastrous.” –Peter Drucker

9. Can you make money?

  • What is your revenue model?
  • What are the likely total annual sales?
  • What are your startup costs?
  • What is your break-even point?
  • How soon could the idea be put into operation?
  • What is the commercial lifespan of your idea?
  • How vulnerable is your idea to the negotiating leverage of customers?
  • How long can you run your business on zero income?

“Innovation— any new idea—by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires courageous patience.” — Warren Bennis

10. Do you have the right skills and resources available to effectively develop and launch your idea?

  • Operational Expertise
  • Financial Expertise
  • Marketing Expertise
  • Technical Expertise
  • Managerial Expertise
  • Financial Resources
  • Physical Resources
  • Network Resources
  • Human Resources

“There is something that is much more scarce, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.”— Robert Half

Ideas to Drive Your Vision and Beat Your Objectives

At QAT Global, we can help you explore the possibilities and discover new opportunities.

Ideation Services

Exploring the Possibilities and Discovering New Opportunities

Innovation is more than just coming up with ideas for new products. We help companies apply the creative process to improve their ideas, including features, user interface design, and platform(s) selection.
Our ideation services provide the following benefits:

  • Discover new high-potential products, markets, needs, and features
  • Define and shape the product vision to match market needs, regulatory requirements, and industry standards
  • Define and validate the technology choices to ensure scalability and flexibility in a product’s design
  • Create and manage highly skilled engineering teams through an offshore/onshore model
  • Provide continuous visibility, iterative control, and reduced risks through Agile development methods
  • Launch, host, and support the product through our partner network or your own
  • Design user experiences that include easy navigation with rich visual experiences

Advisory Services

Helping You Find Ways to Capitalize on Change and Maximize Profits

In order to thrive, businesses today need to act on the rapidly changing market conditions with innovation and agility. Capitalizing on change and achieving long-term success requires business transformation.

Our Advisory Service Focus Areas

  • Enterprise Architecture
  • Globalization
  • Product Architecture
  • Agile Development
  • User Experience
  • Cloud Strategy
  • DevOps
  • Mobile Applications Development
  • Modernization
  • Offshoring
  • Business Process Automation

Delivering Business Value

  • Sustainable performance improvement
  • Strategic, operational, and transformation innovations
  • Strategic IT effectiveness

Internet Consulting

Guidance and Advice to CEOs, Entrepreneurs, and Marketing Departments

With QAT Global as your partner, you instantly have marketing people who are technical.

Internet Business Consulting and Training

  • Custom training on aspects of online marketing
  • Developing Internet Business objectives
  • Inbound marketing strategy
  • Understanding your competitive landscape
  • Evaluating your existing Inbound marketing campaigns and ROI

Internet Technology Consulting

  • Determining which technology platform is best suited for your Internet Business needs
  • Web Site Architecture
  • SEO Architecture
  • Redefining /redesigning your online presence
  • Datafeeds and API setup

Start-up Internet Business Consulting

  • New Internet business concept analysis
  • Market Analysis
  • Assessment and testing technology for your start-up Internet business

Custom Software Development

Creating Rich Internet Applications and Web 2.0 Applications and Sites

Have an idea for something new? Want to create the next social network? You have come to the right place. We create forward-thinking, custom applications that can help you accomplish your business objectives.

  • QAT Global offers some of the most brilliant business analysts and skilled software engineers working in synchronization with the client’s vision to collectively develop the most flexible and suitable software solutions for their business requirements.
  • As pioneers of new technology, we are constantly evolving, offering new services and approaches. If you are interested in a cutting-edge feature or technology, let us know what you are trying to accomplish. We thrive on new challenges and will find the best custom application design and development solution for the job.

Engagement Models

Enabling Business to Get Competitive Edge Through Strategic Resource Models

QAT Global offers clients the option of best shore engagement models pulling resources from the US and/or our offshore development center located in Uberaba, MG, Brazil, where the average time difference to US CDT is only two hours.

  • Lab Building – QAT Global’s Product Engineering Lab Partnership offering extends or creates software development capacity support for a single product or entire product line and drives innovation for companies by rapidly setting up an offshore product development center.
  • Team Expansion – QAT Global’s On-Demand Product Engineering Teams offering enables clients to quickly extend their local engineering teams by integrating talented global engineering teams when the scope, specification, and implementation plans of a development project are reasonably well defined at the outset.
  • Project Execution – QAT Global’s product development engineers can rapidly plug into a client’s short-term product development or product support plans as needed.

Leading Innovation

Leading innovation and driving the next-generation user experience in product development across your enterprise.

Who We Are

A Little Bit About Us

For over 20 years, QAT Global has been an innovation partner delivering high-quality results on time and on budget. QAT Global focuses on all aspects of R&D; we help our clients quickly get to market with new or enhanced products including custom software solutions, web software, desktop software, line of business applications, mobile applications, third-party integrations, eCommerce solutions, content management systems, rich internet applications, and mainframe applications. QAT Global has invested in key technical talent, jump-start tool kits, development libraries, methodologies, and templates that have been refined over many product development efforts and achieve above average, repeatable results for our clients.

QAT Global has a flexible operating model, we work with each of our clients to determine the right fit and we design an approach that will work the most effectively for each client.   This always begins with helping our clients balance insight and ideals with strategic action. Most importantly, throughout our relationship, we always place the interests of our clients first.

QAT Global is committed to delivering quality solutions and client satisfaction.

  • QAT Global maintains the highest standards of professional integrity.
  • QAT Global pursues technical growth and diversity to increase value for our clients and opportunity for our staff.
  • QAT Global employs people with high capability and potential, exceptional creativity, and determination who work closely with one another and with our clients.
  • QAT Global strives to provide each staff member with the freedom to grow personally and professionally.
  • QAT Global fosters a working environment that encourages interactivity among our staff for sharing of ideas, experiences, and deployment of best practices.

Our Values

  • Avoiding “technology for the sake of technology”
  • Transparent processes
  • Proven technologies
  • No re-engineering the wheel
  • Hiring the best talent
  • Staying agile
  • Budget consciousness
  • Fostering innovation

Does your idea have what it takes to become a successful product, service, or business? You may be tempted to jump in head first, but it’s important to make sure your idea is on solid ground before investing your precious time and money in it.
Download the Have the next big idea? How to tell! Innovation Guide from QAT Global

Learn how to get started in our new innovation guide, “Have the next big idea? How to tell!” which will walk you through the questions you need to ask yourself before moving forward with your idea.

In this 33-page guide, you will learn:

  • The importance of having the right motivation – Anyone can come up with a business idea, but to succeed at it you must be motivated by the right factors.
  • How to assess the need and market for your business idea.
  • What legal considerations you should take into account.
  • The questions that need to be answered in order to make sure you can make a profit.

Download the strategy guide today!

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