Supporting Product Development SMEs (small & medium sized enterprises), in risk mitigation, future proofing and resilience building

Do you have a business that is developing and taking to market, innovative, quality products that solve an important problem or serve a genuine need? We can help you navigate that exciting journey and mitigate any bumps along the way.

From meeting global product compliance requirements, understanding product safety risks, improving your internal product development processes, and working on your transition towards a more sustainable business model or product portfolio, Regenerative Business Development exists to help you innovate your way forward.
A Regenerative Business is one that, through sound strategically aligned processes, can keep re-inventing itself to remain relevant and become stronger, more resilient and better at what it does over time.
As an SME that is developing great products, you will have accumulated a lot of knowledge over time. Not just about your final product offering, but everything you have learned along the way. As a growing business, you want to channel everything you have learned into improving the way that you go about developing new products, improving existing products and entering new markets.

As you expand into new markets, increase the range of product offerings you have or greatly upscale the number of products you sell, your risk profile as a product development business increases. This is due to things such as new regulations, differing customer expectations, differing levels of litigation risk, increased risks of product misuse, heightened attention from authorities and more aggressive competitor behaviour. By helping you assess your current and future risk profile, together we can ensure your internal processes are aligned and appropriate for your anticipated level of risk, and can help you continue to move from strength to strength.

Common risks to a growing product development business include:
  • Time-to-market Risk - how rapidly you can develop safe, high quality products and get them to market can be critical for business success, both through ensuring you secure a good market share and in reaping a fast return on development costs. Learn how to assess and mitigate time-to-market risk by understanding the high risk elements of your product concept.
  • Product Safety Risk - All businesses want to produce safe products. Safety issues that present in-market can be costly and lead to potential harm and product recalls. We can help you develop a sound multi-faceted strategy around understanding and assessing various risks.
  • Product Compliance Risk - Global product compliance requirements are changing and evolving rapidly. Non-compliance with regulations or other legal requirements in your markets-of-sale can lead to costly product recalls, fines or stop-sale orders. Your products could also be detained by customs and prevented from entering your target market. Learn how to use understanding of current and expected global product compliance requirements as a value-add activity throughout your product development process. 
  • Product Quality Risk - Understanding your end users changing expectations and managing your product quality can minimise costs associated with warranty issues, loss of reputation and loss of sales. Develop a smart quality assurance process that works for your business and builds consumer confidence.
  • Sustainability Risk - The less sustainable your product (or your business) the more susceptible your business will be to changing customer expectations, supply chain disruptions, material or energy scarcity impacts and changing global legislation. Work with us to understand sustainability in a tangible way that fosters creativity and innovation in your field and determine what your role, as an SME, is in contributing to a better future.

What you can expect
coins in a jar
Save Money
matchbox house on fire
Reduce Risk
person on a tight rope
Upskill Staff
stacked rods
Build Value

Regenerative Business Development works with you to build the necessary competency within your business, enabling you to:
  • develop better products and services through improving your development methods;
  • mitigate in-market product related risks through an evolving strategy and sound processes and
  • improve efficiency and reduce costs by doing the right things at the right time, eliminating rework.

Regenerative Business Development can tailor mentoring, coaching, workshops, training, support and resources to help you improve your business through reducing the risks associated with product development, taking your product to market and ongoing product changes. We can help you assess your risk, identify gaps and opportunities and customise processes, strategy and activities to suit your specific needs. This is done with the objective of adding tangible value to your business. A product can always be copied, but what is happening behind the scenes is what sets you apart. How you develop products and get them to market is where your competitive edge can be found

Regenerative Business Development views the companies it works with as partners, and can be seen as an extension of your team, as committed to the success of your business as you are!

Who we work with
Regenerative Business Development supports a range of innovative, future focused, small to medium sized product development enterprises.

If you are interested in understanding what support we could offer your business, get in touch with us to arrange an initial 30-minute online conversation or request information about some of our "getting ahead" programs to get you started.

Introducing your Supporting Partner

Fiona van Petegem BE(Hons) MBA, has spend 25+ years working in manufacturing and product development in New Zealand, China, the Netherlands and Germany both as a design and industrialisation engineer. Fiona obtained her B.E (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand and an M.B.A. in International Industrial Management from the University of Applied Sciences in Esslingen, Germany, specialising in Lean Management. With 25+ years of experience in industry, and 15 years in management and leadership, Fiona has managed multi-national teams across multiple countries, honing her skills in problem solving, effective communications and efficient procedures to address the complex challenges faced in global markets.

"Fiona substantially improved the processes related to product compliance. Her ability to analyse and assess existing systems and procedures to expose weaknesses and propose improvements was outstanding and well accepted within the whole organization. This acceptance was not only based on her competence and experience but also on her personal commitment, and her capability in terms of training staff and getting people onboard with necessary changes. Her professional, calm and consistent approach, her focus on continuous improvement and positive change allowed our business to move forward. Last but not least, her provision of sound, fact-based risk assessments enabled my decision making"
Hartmut Schürg | COO | Germany

"Fiona systematically analyses processes, quickly identifies problems, pinpoints the real root causes of the problems and works out corresponding process improvements in detail. Fiona created many important process descriptions for us and then quickly coordinated them in the organisation and trained the employees in handling the documents and the processes. I will consult with Fiona in the future where there is a need to analyse and improve complex business processes."
Dipl.-Ing. Peter Krupinski | Interim Quality Management | Germany

"Fiona quickly displayed her strong analytical and problem-solving skills, by identifying business gaps and putting robust procedures in place to fill them.  She has the rare gift of being able to view things holistically, while also having the attention to detail and patience required to devise and enact the necessary changes.  She created and implemented systems for product development, quality assurance and quality control, change control, risk analysis, and manufacturing improvement."
Tim Davie | Logistics Manager | New Zealand

"Fiona is an extremely experienced engineer and global product compliance specialist, with a laser eye for detail. Always calm and good leader of people, I would not hesitate recommending her skills to any business needing expertise in this space."
Jason Crowe | COO | New Zealand

"Fiona demonstrated very high level of proficiency in ensuring product compliance with all requirements. Her thorough knowledge of product requirements spanned the European, North American, and of course those of Australia and New Zealand. Not only is she an expert in the requirement, she is also well experienced in risk assessment and developing corrective actions to mitigate such risk. Her work has always been accurate and well detailed. She is self motivated and always delivered on time. Her experience will prove to be invaluable to any company where her services are used."
Said Nakhla | Head of Product Development | Germany

"Fiona has shown an exceptional ability, knowledge and understanding across a number of product quality, manufacturing and management aspects. I would recommend her as someone well versed in the above aspects and someone who can readily add value to an organisation"
Denis Witt | Business Compliance and Risk | New Zealand

“Fiona is a consummate professional. She is well-researched, and highly effective at challenging our thinking in a very constructive way. Together we have developed a strong future-focused strategy and created ‘shift projects’ to get us there"
Stephen Leitch | Managing Director |New Zealand
Regenerative Business Development
New Zealand