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New Product Development
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New Product Development: An Overview

Where Do New Ideas Come From?

The Voice of the Customer

New Product Strategy

New Product Development Process

New Product Launch

The CEO and New Product Development

The New Product Development Team

New Product Development Mistakes

 

 

New Product Development: Mistakes

Product Pitfalls

It's hard enough introducing a new product into the marketplace because of the flood of manufactured goods already available to consumers. What makes the venture even more difficult, according to TEC experts Mitch Goozé and Nick Webb, are the mistakes companies make again and again throughout the development process.

"One of the most common errors I see starts with the company's basic attitude," Webb notes. "I call it the 'not-invented-here' mentality. Some businesses seem to feel they're just not geared to come up with new products. That's wrong! Most, if not all companies, need to have a vibrant new product development concept happening today."

Other problems crop up due to poor product definition, says Goozé. These include:

  • Product requirements created with insufficient customer contribution
  • Lack of defined product strategy or plan
  • Failure to define simply and with reliability
  • Inadequate early funding
  • Lack of required equipment and facilities
  • Marketing requirements included too late, after development is in progress
  • "Project creep" (constantly changing product specifications requiring constant alterations in design)

"We also find that, in some new product ventures, activities are completed for the sake of activity itself," he adds. In these situations, it's important to be seen doing something -- but without a comprehensive process for evaluating why a product is being developed and who it's being developed for, a business ends up with efforts going off in all directions and resources wasted on dead-end pursuits.

Other common new product development pitfalls:

  • Going with what one customer demands. Although the TEC experts stress the crucial need for customer input in the new product development process, dangers arise if a company lets one customer -- however important -- call the shots. "This customer may want a new feature added to your product line that meets his or her needs alone, thus putting other customers at a disadvantage," Webb says. "When this happens, particularly if the feature requires extensive re-tooling, you place a great deal of time, money and other resources at risk." Better to balance this one customer's needs with comprehensive market data that covers the full range of your customers' requirements.
  • Making promises your sales force can't keep. A salesperson should always be included in the cross-functional product development team -- if for no other reason than to ensure that scheduled rollouts are timed with sales activities. You can't afford to have the sales team promising new, improved features on products if they aren't ready to go.
  • Approving product ideas that are wrong from the outset. "Too many organizations spend time evaluating concepts they shouldn't even be looking at," Webb says. He advocates creating "input filters" -- a way of looking at ideas that are genuinely synergistic with the company's existing line and its position in the marketplace; products that match a rational developmental timetable; and that genuinely meet a market-researched customer need.

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Doing the Homework

Many of the problems connected to new product failure are linked to poor up-front preparation, Goozé notes.

"A surprising number of new products move from idea to development without doing the right homework beforehand," he says. The "right homework" includes:

  • Comprehensive market and competitive analyses. Do you know if competitors are planning a similar new product push? Are you factoring in sufficient resources to market, sell and promote the new product once it's launched?
  • Customer research. Who are the customers you see purchasing the new product? How will it better meet their needs?
  • Concept testing. Do you have a cross-functional project team in place? Is the team prepared to collect and analyze data at each stage of product development?
  • Technical and operations feasibility assessments. Are your manufacturing capabilities up to the task of generating sufficient numbers of the new product? Are you prepared to move from laboratory testing to full-scale production?

Adds Webb: "Part of the necessary preparatory work includes product definition. You have to know what your target audience is, a clear idea of what benefits are going to be delivered and a realistic view of performance requirements and specifications."

Inevitably, some new product ventures will fail during the development process. Some studies suggest that only one out of 20 ideas survive to the launch phase. "It's natural that problems will arise -- technical, marketing, strategic problems -- that doom the idea or simply make it impossible to make at a profit," Webb says. "But in many cases some preliminary research can determine whether or not it's feasible to move forward with a specific idea."

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