THE BENEFITS OF OUTSOURCED PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT VS INTERNAL R&D
In today's dynamic and competitive natural food and beverage industry, companies face crucial decisions regarding product development. One of the most critical is whether to handle this process internally or leverage the expertise of a dedicated partner.
This article aims to provide an insightful comparison between internal and outsourced product development, emphasizing the benefits of choosing Natural Development as your dedicated R&D partner.
Natural Development is a specialized, outsourced R&D team focused on natural food and beverage product development. Our comprehensive approach covers various aspects of the product development lifecycle. We understand the complexities of this industry, and our expertise ensures that your products meet and exceed market demands.
Key Categories for Comparison
We've outlined the key differences and advantages of choosing an outsourced product development team over internal approaches. The topics below fall into three main areas: Timeline, Budget, and Knowledge Base. In short, we will speed up your timelines, cut your R&D budget, and use our 50+ years of combined knowledge and experience to deliver award-winning products.
Cost Savings
Choosing Natural Development means avoiding costs associated with internal hiring. There is no need to budget for R&D recruitment, training, salaries, benefits, or severance packages. As we oversee the entire project, you also save on administrative expenses and the time required to manage additional employees or teams. This translates into significant cost savings for your business and frees up valuable time for other areas of business growth. Furthermore, we provide access to state-of-the-art facilities and equipment sparing you the capital expenditure.
Specialized Expertise
We stay ahead of industry conditions and trends, ensuring your project avoids common pitfalls like ingredient shortages or certification issues. Natural Development brings an entire team of scientific, culinary, and manufacturing experts to the table, providing a broader range of expertise than hiring one person internally. Our established partnerships across various facets of research and development result in quicker progress with production partners, product safety studies, nutritional testing, regulatory consulting, and more.
Workforce Flexibility
Outsourcing to Natural Development provides flexibility in adjusting your team as your project evolves. You can scale the team up or down to match your needs without the challenges and costs of hiring and firing internal staff. Additionally, this allows you to focus on the project's outcome rather than the weekly hours required to keep an internal team busy and cost-effective.
Cash Flow Management
Our contracts provide clear project costs from the outset, offering a level of financial predictability rarely achieved with internal teams. You won't encounter unexpected expenses due to unforeseen issues or team member absences. Continuity is ensured as we seamlessly transition to another expert if a team member falls ill or encounters an issue, preventing project timeline or budget derailment.
Handoff
Upon project completion, Natural Development delivers a comprehensive Technical Handover Manual. This valuable document contains all the essential information your internal teams and manufacturing partners need. Internal teams often struggle to create such a document that's both comprehensive and easy to maintain.
Lifetime Value
Natural Development's commitment goes way beyond project completion. If questions or challenges arise in the future, we're readily available to assist. Internal teams may have to outsource these questions, incurring additional costs. With Natural Development, you only pay for what you need when you need it.
Cost Analysis Breakdown
Natural Development Costs
We recently completed a project commercializing 4 SKUs of a reduced sugar beverage. The project involved ideation, benchtop development, regulatory review, co-man search, scale-up and production assistance (including Technical Handover Manual). The total project time was approximately 4 months and at a cost of $40,000. All from an experienced team of 5 putting their heads together to make sure each phase goes as smoothly as possible.
Internal R&D Costs
In contrast, hiring an internal team has many more costs associated with less than half the amount of hands. Below is a high-level breakdown of internal costs for hiring an R&D team of 2 people, one senior and one junior. Both annual expenses, as well as the modified breakdown of the estimated project length, are included. Another thing to note is that this does not account for other admin costs like relocation, severance, or an outside consultant for anything from production assistance to water activity testing, which you will inevitably need.
Making the Right Choice For Your Business
The choice between internal and outsourced product development is pivotal. Opting for Natural Development as your R&D partner can significantly influence your business's growth and success in the competitive natural food and beverage industry. Even in the case where you already have an internal R&D team or expert, we serve as an excellent complement to innovate, move projects forward, and provide supplemental knowledge when necessary. We're here when you need us, and you pay for only the services you require, ensuring your products achieve their full potential.
To learn more: visit our Services page, FAQ section, fill out our contact form, or schedule time to ask us any of your development or manufacturing questions.