Mastering the New Product Development Process

Idea Generation

Idea generation involves searching for new ideas. Ideas can come from inside the company (employees, R&D) or from outside (suppliers, customers, competitors, crowdsourcing). There are two primary approaches:

• Top-down: You first identify a market opportunity and then create the product.
• Bottom-up: You first invent something and then look for a need it can solve.

The focus here is the target customer and their needs.

Idea Screening

Idea screening is the process of evaluating ideas to keep the good ones and drop the bad ones as soon as possible. You can use methods like R-W-W (Real, Win, Worth), SWOT, or scoring models. The focus is whether the idea really solves a customer need.

Concept Development and Testing

Concept development and testing means creating a detailed version of the idea (the concept) and a working prototype. Then, you test the concept with customers to see if they like it. You ask two key questions:

• Can it be built?
• Does it solve the customer need better than alternatives?

The focus is the value proposition.

Marketing Strategy Development

Marketing strategy development is defining the initial marketing strategy. This process has three parts:

1. The target market, the value proposition, and the sales and profit goals.
2. Articulating the value proposition.
3. Deciding the price, distribution, marketing budget, and marketing mix.

The focus is the target customer and the value proposition.

Business Analysis

Business analysis involves reviewing the sales, costs, and profit projections for the new product. The goal is to see if these numbers meet the company's objectives. The focus is customer needs and the value proposition.

Product Development

Product development is turning the concept into a real physical product. You build a functional prototype and test it until it works well. The focus is the feature set (what the product does) and the user experience (how the customer feels when using it).

Test Marketing

Test marketing is launching the product and its marketing program in a real market, but on a small scale. This gives the company experience before the full launch. While it is expensive and takes time, it helps find problems. The focus is the value proposition, the feature set, and the user experience.

Commercialization

Commercialization is the official launch of the product into the market. You need to decide when to launch and where to launch. You can launch in one location, a region, a whole country, or multiple countries. The focus is all layers: target customer, customer needs, value proposition, feature set, and user experience.