As an Accenture strategy consultant, I spent almost 17 years helping technology companies analyze markets, develop value propositions, re-position products and services, understand customer service and support requirements, and form partnerships to accelerate growth.

Today, I’m helping healthcare technology companies understand how to engage patients in their own care and refine their solutions based on customer input to generate actionable information and investor value.

Among the challenges facing technology companies inside and outside of healthcare:

• Continuing commoditization of hardware
• Concentration of channel power in the hands of media and information companies
• End user distraction and lack of stickiness for all but a handful of frequently used applications and services
• Difficult to quantify value propositions and uncertain payment models.

These challenges are offset by the enormous opportunities that consumer and, especially, consumer health technologies offer for ever more personalized services that can really change lives—whether lifestyle applications for the worried well or disease management solutions for the chronically ill.

Helping my clients take advantage of these opportunities often means working with them to

• Understand channel power and competitive dynamics
• Simultaneously pursue parallel product development tracks while keeping focus on evolving market conditions
• Form partnerships among sometimes unlikely allies
• Tell stories to investors and the public that can break through the clutter.