New product development process in 10 steps
Radhika Madhavan
Director of Marketing
Table of Contents
- Key factors influencing your customer journey
- New product development process: An overview
- Leveraging technology for efficient product development
- Building the right team for successful product development
- 10 key steps to successfully developing and launching a new product
- Leverage the new product development process with High Peak
The process behind a new product development may differ substantially from one company to another; however, it’s important to understand the steps involved in developing a product from its ideation to its commercialization. The new product development process covers bringing a new product to the market, introducing an existing product in a new market, and renewing an existing product.
Each of these objectives involves playing around with similar products and exploring novel functionalities that can be brought to current and future consumers.
Did you know that Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School highlights a sobering trend: most new products don’t succeed? Around 30,000 debuts each year, yet 95% vanish without a trace. This reveals the steep odds innovators face. Even with careful planning, the path to market can be unpredictable. It emphasizes the need for resilience and adaptability in the new product development process.
Key factors influencing your customer journey
The decisions that influence whether a customer buys and continues buying your product start well before the customer even lays their hands on the product. A positive customer experience starts with well-targeted marketing campaigns that consistently align with the needs of the market.
Here are some factors that provide a more complete view into the mind of the customer:
- Buying task
- Market offerings
- Demographics
- Life stage
- Lifestyle
- Motivation
- Perception, learning, belief
- Culture, subculture, social class, family, reference groups
New product development process: An overview
Firstly, why do we need a new product development process? Also, it should be noted that the “new” in the new product development process refers to the process behind building a new product and does not refer to a new process itself.
- A new product development process serves as a beacon. It guides through the fog of uncertainty surrounding an innovative concept. Unlike traditional methods that depend heavily on market performance data, this process provides clarity and assurance.
- At its core, the new product development process turns a market opportunity into a truly innovative product or service. It leverages cutting-edge technology to address the dynamic demands of today’s market. This goal is ambitious yet straightforward. We aim to optimize costs, reduce time-to-market, and ensure unparalleled product quality.
- Furthermore, the new product development process enriches managerial decisions with robust data insights. It ensures that the direction of product development aligns seamlessly with the company’s strategic goals. Achieving this alignment demands the removal of communication barriers. It calls for the integration of Knowledge Management practices across the organization. We must also meticulously assess the commercial appeal of the proposed new product.
In short, Embarking on a new product development process goes beyond mere innovation. It acts as a strategic maneuver that positions both the product and the company for success in a competitive landscape. This approach highlights the need for clarity, alignment, and a forward-thinking mindset in product development. Explore how High Peak’s product development services can help your project succeed.
Leveraging technology for efficient product development
In today’s fast-paced market, leveraging the right technology can streamline the new product development process immensely. Let’s see the details.
Transforming ideas into market-ready innovations using AI product development
High Peak’s AI development solutions revolutionize the new product development process. These solutions provide the precision and foresight necessary to navigate competitive markets effectively, leading to successful and timely product launches. Also, by integrating AI product development strategies, they ensure that each product is innovative and strategically aligned with current market trends.
Streamlining design and prototyping with simulation tools
The new product development process has been significantly transformed by simulation tools. They enable designers and engineers to test and refine their ideas in a virtual environment. This reduces the time and cost associated with physical prototyping. Products can now enter the market faster and with fewer iterations, ensuring a better fit with customer needs.
Enhancing collaboration and project management through software
Project management software has become indispensable in the new product development process. It facilitates seamless communication and collaboration across teams, irrespective of geographic locations. Such tools ensure that every team member is aligned with the project timelines. They are up-to-date with their responsibilities. This synchronization reduces delays and enhances the efficiency of product development.
Building the right team for successful product development
The team behind a product is as crucial as the technology used in its development. Let’s see the details of how building the right team can set the stage for the product’s success.
Assembling a multidisciplinary team to cover all development facets
The new product development process demands the collaboration of a multidisciplinary team. This team combines expertise from R&D, marketing, product management, and quality assurance. Each member brings a unique perspective to the table, ensuring that the product is well-rounded and market-ready. Their collaboration is essential for navigating the complexities of product development and for a successful product launch.
Promoting effective communication and coordination among team members
Communication and coordination are the cornerstones of a successful new product development process. Establishing clear communication channels and coordinating mechanisms ensures that every team member is informed and engaged. Best practices, such as regular cross-functional meetings and agile methodologies, foster a culture of open dialogue and dynamic adaptation to project updates or challenges.
Leadership’s role in steering the development process toward success
Effective leadership is critical in guiding the new product development process. Leaders must not only provide a clear vision and direction for the project but also motivate and empower their teams. This involves balancing creativity with pragmatism and encouraging innovation while maintaining a focus on the project’s goals and deadlines. A skilled leader can inspire their team to overcome obstacles and achieve excellence in product development.
With advanced technologies and a skilled team, companies can handle the new product development process better. This strategy focuses on both technology and people. It makes the development of new products more efficient. Products turn out to be both innovative and in tune with what the market wants.
Advanced technologies offer the tools needed for breakthroughs. A team of varied talents brings different perspectives. Together, this combination is powerful. It allows companies to introduce standout products in the market.
10 key steps to successfully developing and launching a new product
Just as there is no one ride-sharing app or instant messaging platform, there is no one generic product development process. Each version of such a product or service will vary depending on the depth and detail that goes into its development.
Building new products can be an uncertain adventure and when done right, it’s an adventure that can bring in much gratification and value from its users.
In this section, we dive into the 10 steps of the new product development process. This journey focuses on developing new products. It typically ends with a crucial decision-making step. This step is undertaken by the Senior Management team, often referred to as a gate.
1. Idea generation and screening
No product development can start without an underlying idea or concept to carry it to its users.
This stage involves idea generation where we brainstorm and come up with innovative new ideas that can solve customer problems. See generating ideas for new products and services.
Then we start Evaluating and Screening out concepts by filtering out any ideas not worth taking forward; those ideas are worth the company’s resources and/or raw and unproven ideas that can take the company’s objectives to the next level.
Finally, we start defining the chosen concept and establishing its various specifications such as market potential, technical feasibility, and product design.
2. Product research and definition
In this phase, we actively forecast and evaluate the technical, market, and business aspects of the product during its market launch. All stakeholders need to comprehend the environment where the product or service is developed and deployed.
That’s why we must refine the definition of the product concept and make sure that everyone involved understands the customer requirements. A pre-commercialization analysis of the product, if you will.
3. Marketing strategy development
A solid marketing strategy can put the business management at ease with knowing how the product enters the market, and into what environment it is entering. Essentially, this stage deals with conducting market research to capture current and future sentiment in the target industry while also trying to define the value proposition and predict the long-term sales, market share, and profit for the next few years.
Of course, all this happens under a marketing budget which is then again specified exclusively for the New Product.
4. Competitor business analysis
A product is always released into a playing field, the market, which can be dominated, saturated, or awaiting a revolutionary change. Whatever the status of the market, it’s important to keep in mind why we are releasing the product at hand: to benefit customers and enhance their current experience of a service or product.
We need to identify ways to enhance our competitor’s offerings. Their products lack quality, experience, and innovative features. We can incorporate these elements into our product. This will better meet the target market’s requirements.
We can start this stage by performing a competitive analysis, outlining the total sales forecast, estimating costs and profit projections, and then mapping out the distribution strategy, including e-commerce. The competitor business analysis should also produce advertising and PR estimates, which factor into the ROI calculation for the new product, finally resulting in a three-year Profit & Loss plan.
5. Development costs
Product development costs can be extremely volatile, and R&D and engineering costs can lead to a huge jump in initial investment.
Though the development process must be smooth and continuous, it isn’t always the case, so at this step in the NPD, the team develops different development costs that can arise during the development process.
6. Product planning
This stage involves defining the details required to produce the final product or service. For example, if it’s a physical product you’re creating, you’ll need to source the raw materials or find supply chain partners to whom you can outsource the manufacturing.
Product planning can alert companies and businesses to long-term challenges within the business environment and that’s why optimizing this process can help identify and create contingencies for any bumps that might come along in the product development journey, achieving a faster time to market.
This stage also involves identifying the workforce that will be working on each aspect of the product development process to come such as the marketing, design, and development teams that will bring the product to fruition.
7. Product Design
To bring the new and untested concepts we have at hand and turn them into minimum viable products that can be visually and technically marketed, a strong design team is essential. Design helps to consider themes, usability, design palettes that fit product as well as business, while incorporating all the features that were laid out in the Idea Generation and Product Research phase.
We begin by creating mockups that can garner necessary initial feedback on such things as product-market fit, market potential, and alignment with company aesthetic. Often, we begin with simple paper prototypes for initial mockups. We use these to gather early feedback from test marketing. Afterward, we can start collecting customer feedback through concept designs.
The next step in the ladder uses computer-aided design to create a design simulation using 3D rendering software that provides an almost real-life rendering of how the product might look and feel when it hits the market. This helps uncover defects that might have been hidden. Utilize this opportunity to return to address any superficial or sub-surface issues.
8. Product development
PD is the beginning of the product life-cycle development process and is when we start creating the final product that will be commercialized. Also, the objective is for the designers, engineers, and developers to arrive at a functional prototype of the product concept. It usually starts with developing the MVP or Minimum Viable Product which involves collecting the ideas and materials so far relegated to the New Product and creating the best form of a testing product that adheres to the fundamental concept and requirements of the market.
Followed by prototyping the new product with a fully-fledged UI/UX, content, functionality, and anything else that we expect the commercialized product to offer.
Building a successful prototype can take days, weeks, months, or even years, depending on available resources and prototyping methods. Although it might seem unsteady, this stage offers the best opportunities to bring your prototypes to consumers for pre-release testing which can be exceptionally valuable to both development and marketing teams.
After receiving a green light from all stakeholders, final touches are added to the prototype. A SaaS business like ours usually then moves on to finalizing the code. By the end of this phase, Senior Management should have a working experience of the final product.
9. Validation and Testing
Finally, we are at that last crucial stage before we open up our product or service to the entire world. Here, we ensure that all the metaphorical nuts and bolts are fastened securely. We conduct market testing, product testing, and performance testing. These tests help us analyze how the product performs across various application builds, in different customer scenarios, and in realistic marketing environments.
This enables marketers, designers, and developers to understand how better to package, distribute, and sell the product or service to the customers before it hits the shelves.
Here, we validate every underlying concept, attribute, and function of the product under “real world” conditions as much as possible. This is why the company should make any required optimizations. It might be the team’s last chance to do so before the product’s debut.
It’s also important to close this stage with beta testing, which comprises manual testing to validate the product’s overall performance and efficiency considering various input scenarios, helping further validate the go-to-market plan.
10. Commercialization
All this testing, evaluation, and analysis has given management all the necessary data needed to make the final decision: To launch the new product or not to launch the new product.
If all lights turn green, then we’re almost done and it’s time to fine-tune those aspects that can either drive the market towards you or far away from you: product pricing, finalizing marketing plans, conducting pre-launch webinars, and other such activities that can multiply the chances of success.
This stage can often be a costly ordeal when it comes to infrastructural costs such as cloud storage and larger amounts, resulting from initiating and sustaining marketing activities such as sales promotions and advertisements.
Before launching the product, it’s important to evaluate the business environment into which we will be launching the product or service such as
- Timing: If the economy is trending downwards, you might want to consider pushing the launch forward to a date when the target users will be able to participate. Or maybe it’s not the economy and it’s your competitor ready to introduce their products, then please be advised that your company should push to introduce the new product sooner.
- Place: Geography can be nothing but tricky, especially if you don’t know whether you should stick to a single location or region, or go full speed ahead with the national or international market. All this might depend on the capacity and capital that your company holds, so tally your resources and decide whether you’d like to tackle a smaller geographical area or a larger one.
Leverage the new product development process with High Peak
The stage is almost set, now all that remains is to have your teams—production, distribution, marketing, sales, and customer support in place to ensure a successful launch and a thriving campaign that lasts many seasons.
And here we are, at the product finale; the product premieres at the global stage or the end-users laptop, either way, it’s out for everyone to use and utilize. Very few products enjoy the limelight for an increased time but as long as you remember it’s all about creating a superior customer experience then it’s more likely that you end up being the very few, the very noteworthy.
Looking to unlock the full potential of your company portfolio through our product development offerings? Let’s build great products together!
