The New Product Development Process

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The new product development is a compound process that consists of diverse stages directed to collecting and analyzing the data related to the market and developing a profitable offer based on the research. Each product development process includes such stages as idea generation, idea screening, feature specification, development, testing, and commercialization. The ideas for a new product can come from anyone, for example, companies customers, employees, managers, and their families. Any person can come up with a great idea based on the evidence that proves the target audiences struggles, as well as anything, can play a role of a trigger for finding the solution to the problem. However, corporations still tend to conduct various brainstormings, meetings, and research centers to generate new ideas.

The idea screening stage is one of the most significant stages as the company estimates the idea based on various criteria such as ease of implementation, profitability, or goodness. Companies need to evaluate all ideas to discredit the bad ones and prevent the loss of investment and profit. At the feature specification stage, the important components of the future good are chosen and estimated. This stage involves the examination of the consumer, the creation of the target audience portrait, and the division of potential buyers into target groups based on specific criteria. These strategies help companies understand which features are the most important for consumers, what additional components can be added to the product, and what is the optimal price for each target group.

The development is one of the most volumetric stages of this process. It includes planning of the production process, creation of prototypes, calculation of all needed variables and parameters, the final offering is suggested, and all goods specifications are carefully analyzed and documented. This stage provides the physical evidence of how the product looks or what costs it demands. Therefore, the company can find more effective ways of production for this good before its actual launch on the market. Testing follows the development stage and aims to evaluate the practical utility of the good. During the testing process, a group of consumers utilizes the product in their daily routine and gives feedback on the pros and cons of the commodity. At this stage, some minor mistakes can be corrected, or the good can be completely changed based on the experiments results. However, further product development can even be stopped if the commodity is considered dangerous or deleterious. For example, this situation is common in drug development; new medicine is usually tested on animals such as rats; therefore, in case some side effects occur, the drug development is started from scratch. However, if no great problems appear at the testing stage, the final product is inculcated in the market, and its performance is estimated.

In new product creation, such notions as invention and innovation are important. However, there is some difference between those two marketing ideas, although both are related to the new product development process. An invention can be defined as the creation of a new product that has no analogs. However, innovation adds value to the invention by improving it. According to Marion (2020), innovation can be defined as the introduction of a new product, service, or method (p.195). For example, Steve Jobs did not create the smartphone, but he created a new model of it. Therefore, it can be called an innovation.

While studying the Unit, I got interested in the product life cycle of various goods. Although I already knew some information on that topic, it was new to me that some products of almost the same qualities can pass through the stages of PLC during different periods. It is seen in the Pepsi example provided in the book. Therefore, I am curious whether there is a way to predict the PLC of a product.

References

Marion, T. J., & Fixson, S. K. (2020). The transformation of the innovation process: how digital tools are changing work, collaboration, and the organizations in new product development. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 38(1), 192-215. Web.

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