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Lesson#21
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New Product Development
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In last Lesson we discussed the concept regarding some individual
decisions about the product like
product attributes, labeling and packaging. Today we will continue the
same topic and will discuss
the process of new product development again as well.
o PRODUCT
o NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
A. Product Line Strategies
We have looked at product strategy decisions such as branding,
packaging, labeling, and support
services for individual products and services. But product strategy also
calls for building a product
line. A product line is a group of products that are closely related
because they function in a similar
manner, are sold to the same customer groups, are marketed through the
same types of outlets, or
fall within given price ranges. For example, Nike produces several lines
of athletic shoes and
Motorola produces several lines of telecommunications products. In
developing product line strategies, marketers face a number of tough
decisions.
The major product line decision involves product line
length—the number of items in the product line. The line is too short if
the manager can increase profits by adding items; the line is too long
if the manager can increase profits by dropping items. Company
objectives and resources influence product line length. Product lines
tend to lengthen over time. The sales force and distributors may
pressure the product manager for a more complete line to satisfy their
customers. Or, the manager may want to
add items to the product line to create growth in sales and profits.
However, as the manager adds
items, several costs rise: design and engineering costs, inventory
costs, manufacturing changeover
costs, transportation costs, and promotional costs to introduce new
items. Eventually top
management calls a halt to the mushrooming product line. Unnecessary or
unprofitable items will
be pruned from the line in a major effort to increase overall
profitability. This pattern of
uncontrolled product line growth followed by heavy pruning is typical
and may repeat itself many
times.
The company must manage its product lines carefully. It can
systematically increase the length of
its product line in two ways: by stretching its line and by filling its
line. Product line stretching
stretches its line downward, upward, or both ways.
Many companies initially locate at the upper end of the market and later
stretch their lines
downward. A company may stretch downward to plug a market hole that
otherwise would attract a
new competitor or to respond to a competitor's attack on the upper end.
Or it may add low-end
products because it finds faster growth taking place in the low-end
segments.
B. New-product development
Given the rapid changes in consumer tastes, technology, and competition,
companies must
develop a steady stream of new products and services. A firm can obtain
new products in two
ways. One is through acquisition—by buying a whole company, a patent, or
a license to produce
someone else's product. The other is through new-product development in
the company's own
research and development department. By new products we mean original
products, product
improvements, product modifications, and new brands that the firm
develops through its own
research and development efforts. In this chapter, we concentrate on
new-product development.
New products continue to fail at a disturbing rate. One source estimates
that new consumer
packaged goods (consisting mostly of line extensions) fail at a rate of
80 percent. Moreover, failure rates for new industrial products may be
as high as 30 percent.3Why do so many new products fail? There are
several reasons. Although an idea may be good, the market size may have
been overestimated. Perhaps the actual product was not designed as well
as it should have been. Or maybe it was incorrectly positioned in the
market, priced too high, or advertised poorly. A high-level executive
might push a favorite idea despite poor marketing
research findings. Sometimes the costs of product development are
higher than expected, and sometimes competitors fight back harder than
expected.
Because so many new products fail, companies are anxious to learn how to
improve their odds of
new-product success. One way is to identify successful new products and
find out what they have
in common. Another is to study new-product failures to see what lessons
can be learned. Various
studies suggest that new-product success depends on developing a unique
superior product, one
with higher quality, new features, and higher value in use. Another key
success factor is a welldefined
product concept prior to development, in which the company carefully
defines and
assesses the target market, the product requirements, and the benefits
before proceeding. Other
success factors have also been suggested—senior management commitment,
relentless innovation,
and a smoothly functioning new-product development process. In all, to
create successful new
products, a company must understand its consumers, markets, and
competitors and develop
products that deliver superior value to customers.
So companies face a problem—they must develop new products, but the odds
weigh heavily
against success. The solution lies in strong new-product planning and in
setting up a systematic
new-product development process for finding and growing new products.
Figure shows the eight
major steps in this process.
a) Idea generation
New-product development starts with idea generation—the systematic
search for new-product
ideas. A company typically has to generate many ideas in order to find a
few good ones. Major
sources of new-product ideas include internal sources, customers,
competitors, distributors and
suppliers, and others. Using internal sources, the company can find new
ideas through formal
research and development. It can pick the brains of its executives,
scientists, engineers,
manufacturing, and salespeople. Some companies have developed successful
"entrepreneurial"
programs that encourage employees to think up and develop new-product
ideas. Good newproduct
ideas also come from watching and listening to customers.
The company
can analyze
customer questions and complaints to find new products that better solve
consumer problems.
The company can conduct surveys or focus groups to learn about consumer
needs and wants. Or
company engineers or salespeople can meet with and work alongside
customers to get suggestions
and ideas. Finally, consumers often create new products and uses on
their own, and companies can
benefit by finding these products and putting them on the market.
Customers can also be a good
source of ideas for new product uses that can expand the market for and
extend the life of current
products. Competitors are another good source of new-product ideas.
Companies watch
competitors' ads and other communications to get clues about their new
products. They buy
competing new products, take them apart to see how they work, analyze
their sales, and decide
whether they should bring out a new product of their own. Finally,
distributors and suppliers
contribute many good new-product ideas. Resellers are close to the
market and can pass along
information about consumer problems and new-product possibilities.
Suppliers can tell the
company about new concepts, techniques, and materials that can be used
to develop new products.
Other idea sources include trade magazines, shows, and seminars;
government agencies; newproduct
consultants; advertising agencies; marketing research firms; university
and commercial
laboratories; and inventors.
The search for new-product ideas should be systematic rather than
haphazard. Otherwise, few new
ideas will surface and many good ideas will sputter in and die. Top
management can avoid these
problems by installing an idea management system that directs
the flow of new ideas to a central point
where they can be collected, reviewed, and evaluated. In setting up such
a system, the company can
do any or all of the following:
• Appoint a respected senior person to be the company's idea manager.
• Create a multidisciplinary idea management committee consisting of
people from R&D,
engineering, purchasing, operations, finance, and sales and marketing to
meet regularly and
evaluate proposed new-product and service ideas.
• Set up a toll-free number for anyone who wants to send a new idea to
the idea manager.
• Encourage all company stakeholders—employees, suppliers, distributors,
dealers— to send
their ideas to the idea manager.
• Set up formal recognition programs to reward those who contribute the
best new ideas.
The idea manager approach yields two favorable outcomes. First, it helps
create an innovationoriented
company culture. It shows that top management supports, encourages, and
rewards
innovation. Second, it will yield a larger number of ideas among which
will be found some
especially good ones. As the system matures, ideas will flow more
freely. No longer will good ideas
wither for the lack of a sounding board or a senior product advocate
b) Idea Screening
The purpose of idea generation is to create a large number of ideas. The
purpose of the succeeding
stages is to reduce that number. The first idea-reducing stage
is idea screening, which helps spot
good ideas and drop poor ones as soon as possible. Product development
costs rise greatly in later
stages, so the company wants to go ahead only with the product ideas
that will turn into profitable
products. As one marketing executive suggests, "Three executives sitting
in a room can get 40
good ideas ricocheting off the wall in minutes. The challenge is getting
a steady stream of good
ideas out of the labs and creativity campfires, through marketing and
manufacturing, and all the
way to consumers."
Many companies require their executives to write up new-product ideas on
a standard form that
can be reviewed by a new-product committee. The write-up describes the
product, the target
market, and the competition. It makes some rough estimates of market
size, product price,
development time and costs, manufacturing costs, and rate of return. The
committee then
evaluates the idea against a set of general criteria such as these: Is
the product truly useful to
consumers and society? Is it good for our particular company? Does it
mesh well with the
company's objectives and strategies? Do we have the people, skills, and
resources to make it
succeed? Does it deliver more value to customers than do competing
products? Is it easy to
advertise and distribute? Many companies have well-designed systems for
rating and screening
new-product ideas.
c) Concept Development and Testing
An attractive idea must be developed into a product concept. It is
important to distinguish
between a product idea, a product concept, and a product image. A
product idea is an idea for a
possible product that the company can see itself offering to the market.
A product concept is a
detailed version of the idea stated in meaningful consumer terms. A
product image is the way
consumers perceive an actual or potential product.
Concept testing calls for testing new-product concepts with groups of
target consumers. The
concepts may be presented to consumers symbolically or physically For
some concept tests, a
word or picture description might be sufficient. However, a more
concrete and physical
presentation of the concept will increase the reliability of the concept
test. Today, some marketers
are finding innovative ways to make product concepts more real to
consumer subjects. For
example, some are using virtual reality to test product concepts.
Virtual reality programs use
computers and sensory devices (such as gloves or goggles) to simulate
reality.
d) Marketing strategy Development
The next step is marketing strategy development, designing an initial
marketing strategy for
introducing this car to the market.
The marketing strategy statement consists of three parts. The
first part describes the target market; the
planned product positioning; and the sales, market share, and profit
goals for the first few years.
The second part of the marketing strategy statement outlines the
product's planned price,
distribution, and marketing budget for the first year. The third part of
the marketing strategy
statement describes the planned long-run sales, profit goals, and
marketing mix strategy:
e) Business Analysis
Once management has decided on its product concept and marketing
strategy, it can evaluate the
business attractiveness of the proposal. Business analysis involves a
review of the sales, costs, and
profit projections for a new product to find out whether they satisfy
the company's objectives. If
they do, the product can move to the product development stage.
To estimate sales, the company might look at the sales history of
similar products and conduct
surveys of market opinion. It can then estimate minimum and maximum
sales to assess the range
of risk. After preparing the sales forecast, management can estimate the
expected costs and profits
for the product, including marketing, R&D, operations, accounting, and
finance costs. The
company then uses the sales and costs figures to analyze the new
product's financial attractiveness.
f) Product Development
So far, for many new-product concepts, the product may have existed only
as a word description, a
drawing, or perhaps a crude mock-up. If the product concept passes the
business test, it moves
into product development. Here, R&D or engineering develops the product
concept into a
physical product. The product development step, however, now calls for a
large jump in
investment. It will show whether the product idea can be turned into a
workable product.
The R&D department will develop and test one or more physical versions
of the product concept.
R&D hopes to design a prototype that will satisfy and excite consumers
and that can be produced
quickly and at budgeted costs. Developing a successful prototype can
take days, weeks, months, or
even years. Often, products undergo rigorous functional tests to make
sure that they perform
safely and effectively. The prototype must have the required functional
features and also convey
the intended psychological characteristics.
g) Test Marketing
If the product passes functional and consumer tests, the next step is
test marketing, the stages at
which the product and marketing program are introduced into more
realistic market settings. Test
marketing gives the marketer experience with marketing the product
before going to the great
expense of full introduction. It lets the company test the product and
its entire marketing
program—positioning strategy, advertising, distribution, pricing,
branding and packaging, and
budget levels.
The amount of test marketing needed varies with each new product. Test
marketing costs can be
enormous, and it takes time that may allow competitors to gain
advantages. When the costs of
developing and introducing the product are low, or when management is
already confident about
the new product, the company may do little or no test marketing.
Companies often do not testmarket
simple line extensions or copies of successful competitor products.
h) Commercialization
Test marketing gives management the information needed to make a final
decision about whether
to launch the new product. If the company goes ahead with
commercialization—introducing the
new product into the market—it will face high costs. The company will
have to build or rent a
manufacturing facility. The company launching a new product must first
decide on introduction
timing Next, the company must decide where to launch
the new product—in a single location, a
region, the national market, or the international market. Few companies
have the confidence,
capital, and capacity to launch new products into full national or
international distribution. They
will develop a planned market rollout over time. In particular,
small companies may enter attractive
cities or regions one at a time. Larger companies, however, may quickly
introduce new models into
several regions or into the full national market.
Speeding Up New-Product Development
Many companies organize their new-product development process into the
orderly sequence of
steps starting with idea generation and ending with commercialization.
Under this sequential
product development approach, one company department works individually
to complete its stage
of the process before passing the new product along to the next
department and stage. This
orderly, step-by-step process can help bring control to complex and
risky projects. But it also can
be dangerously slow. In fast-changing, highly competitive markets, such
slow-but-sure product
development can result in product failures, lost sales and profits, and
crumbling market positions.
"Speed to market" and reducing new-product development cycle time have
become pressing
concerns to companies in all industries.
In order to get their new products to market more quickly, many
companies are adopting a faster,
team-oriented approach called simultaneous (or team-based) product
development. Under this
approach, company departments work closely together, overlapping the
steps in the product
development process to save time and increase effectiveness. Instead of
passing the new product
from department to department, the company assembles a team of people
from various
departments that stay with the new product from start to finish. Such
teams usually include people
from the marketing, finance, design, manufacturing, and legal
departments, and even supplier and
customer companies.
Top management gives the product development team general strategic
direction but no clear-cut
product idea or work plan. It challenges the team with stiff and
seemingly contradictory goals—
"turn out carefully planned and superior new products, but do it
quickly"—and then gives the team
whatever freedom and resources it needs to meet the challenge. In the
sequential process, a
bottleneck at one phase can seriously slow the entire project. In the
simultaneous approach, if one
functional area hits snags, it works to resolve them while the team
moves on.
KEY TERMS
New-product development: The development of original
products, product improvements,
product modifications, and new brands through the firm's own R&D
efforts.
Idea generation: The systematic search for new-product
ideas.
Idea screening: screening new-product ideas in order to
spot good ideas and drop poor ones as
soon as possible.
Product concept: A detailed version of the new-product
idea stated in meaningful consumer
terms.
Concept testing: Testing new-product concepts with a
group of target consumers to find out if
the concepts have strong consumer appeal.
Business analysis: A review of the sales, costs, and
profit projections for a new product to find
out whether these factors satisfy the company's objectives.
Product development: A strategy for company growth by
offering modified or new products to
current market segments. Developing the product concept into a physical
product in order to
ensure that the product idea can be turned into a workable product.
Commercialization: Introducing a new product into the
market.
Test marketing: The stage of new-product development in
which the product and marketing
program are tested in more realistic market settings. |
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