Online product development To uncover your next opportunity, look within.

The situation
This library database provider was digitizing billions of pages of content and was looking to repurpose the content for new markets. They started a new division to package and sell customizable online course packs for adoption in college courses. Few of their development staff had experience at creating college course materials, so they outsourced the product development to O’Donnell & Associates.

The process
Our client asked us to start with literature and history—course areas for which their content was particularly robust. We put our market development process to work, and began with some focus groups to test and refine the concept, followed by in-depth interviews to identify the content that needed to be included in the literature course packs We managed the development process, recruiting subject matter experts (SMEs) to develop collections of articles for dozens of history and literature topics. Our SMEs created lecture notes and suggestions. And, we editorially reviewed all the packs. We worked with our clients’ programmers to oversee production. Finally, we went back to our earlier research participants and asked them to class test the course packs.

The results
Our client converted nearly all of our development participants into customers. This was one of the early online college providers, at a time when faculties were just beginning to explore the use of the Web for college courses. As a result of our findings, they have shifted strategies and changed their product offerings. These early products became a showcase for what the company could offer and provide to its customers.