DEVELOPING A SUCCESSFUL NEW PRODUCT
Nowadays all corporations and businesses have a new product portfolio, or several new products in development. However this new products are not always successful. This is due to many businesses don’t develop their new products the right way. Understanding why new products succeed and why some businesses are so much better than others at product innovation is central to effective new product management.
In order to succeed at the development of new products there are certain Success Drivers that we need to take into consideration. Some studies have shown that there eight critical drivers to accomplish success.
The first thing is to develop unique superior and differentiated products, that deliver unique benefits and superior value to customers, we need to meet users’ needs through the unique features not available on competitive products. Well, so how we meet user needs is the second driver — Building in the voice of the customer, it means understanding of customers’ needs and wants, the competitive situation, and the nature of the market. A market focus should prevail throughout the entire new product project, we must remember that the best ideas come from customers! User and customer inputs have a vital role in the design of the product and they shouldn’t cease.
Best performers test the product concept with the customer by presenting a representation of the product
Before we continue with the development there’s a step we need to do: “Doing the homework”. The steps that precede the actual design and development of the product make the difference between winning and losing. In this phase we have the first decision to begin the project (the idea screen), the initial market study, Preliminary technical assessment, market study, market research and the business and financial analysis.
Once we start the development is vital to have a sharp and early product and project definition, and avoid two of the worst time wasters in a new-product project are project scope creep ( means that the definition of the project constantly changes ) and unstable product specs (means that the product definition — product requirements and specifications — keeps changing).
The next critical success driver is the Spiral development, it helps the project team get the product and product definition right. Let’s remember that the best ideas come from customers, so in this phase, in a series of iterative steps or loops successive versions of the product are shown to the customer to seek feedback and verification. This leads to a “build-test-feedback-and-revise” iterations.
In global markets, product development plays a primary role in achieving a sustainable competitive advantage. A global approach to new product development outperform those that concentrate their research spending in their home market. International products designed for and targeted at world and nearest neighbor export markets are the best- performing new products. By contrast, products designed for only the domestic or home market, and later adjusted and sold to nearest neighbor export markets, fare worse.
Finally there are two critical drivers. Planning and Resourcing the Launch, Not only must the product be a superior one, but it must also be launched, marketed, and supported in a proficient manner. Don’t assume that good products sell themselves, and don’t treat the launch as an afterthought. And don’t forget that Speed is a competitive weapon. Speed yields competitive advantage — the first on the market; it means less likelihood that the market or competitive situation has changed.
We can conclude that for successfully designing new products the most important is to hear the customers and analyze the market before staring the development process. This will save us time and will make that the features we put in our products will meet the needs of the users.
We must not forget that the product will not sell by itself, so planning the launch is one of the last very important step.
Marita Salas Otiniano — National University of Trujillo