More specifically, the new product plan is used to:
Define an overall strategy for products to guide selection of development projects;
Define target markets, customers, competitive strengths, and a competition strategy (e.g., competing head-on or finding a market niche);
Position planned products relative to competitive products and identify what will differentiate or distinguish these products from the competition;
Rationalize these competing development projects and establish priorities for development projects;
Provide a high-level schedule of various development projects; and
Estimate development resources and balance project resource requirements with a budget in the overall business plan.
Few companies have a formal new product planning process, let alone a rigorous process. While a new product plan is generally prepared on an annual basis, it should be reviewed and updated at least quarterly, if not monthly. Market conditions will change, new product opportunities will be identified, and new product technology will emerge all causing a potential impact to the product plan.
Once a new product plan is established which defines the target market and customers, the next step is to plan how to capture these customer's needs for each development project. This includes determining how to identify target customers, which customers to contact in order to capture there needs, what mechanisms to use to collect their needs, and a schedule and estimate of resources to capture the voice of the customer (project plan for product definition phase).
As opportunities are identified, appropriate techniques are used to capture the voice of the customer. The techniques used will depend on the nature of the customer relationship as illustrated below. There is no one monolithic voice of the customer. Customer voices are diverse. In consumer markets, there are a variety of different needs. Even within one buying unit, there are multiple customer voices (e.g., children versus parents). This applies to industrial and government markets as well. There are even multiple customer voices within a single organization: the voice of the procuring organization, the voice of the user, and the voice of the supporting or maintenance organization. These diverse voices must be considered, reconciled and balanced to develop a truly successful product.
Traditionally, Marketing has had responsibility for defining customer needs and product requirements. This has tended to isolate Engineering and other development personnel from the customer and from gaining a first hand understanding of customer needs. As a result, customer's real needs can become somewhat abstract to other development personnel.
Product development personnel need to be directly involved in understanding customer needs. This may involve visiting or meeting with customers, observing customers using or maintaining products, participating in focus groups or rotating development personnel through marketing, sales, or customer support functions. This direct involvement provides a better understanding of customer needs, the customer environment, and product use; develops greater empathy on the part of product development personnel, minimizes hidden knowledge, overcomes technical arrogance, and provides a better perspective for development decisions. These practices have resulted in fundamental insights such as engineers of highly technical products recognizing the importance to customers of ease of use and durability rather than the latest technology.
Where a company has a direct relationship with a very small number of customers, it is desirable to have a customer representative(s) on the product development team. Alternately, mechanisms such as focus groups should be used where there are a larger number of customers to insure on-going feedback over the development cycle. Current customers as well as potential customers should be considered and included. This customer involvement is useful for initially defining requirements, answering questions and providing input during development, and critiquing a design or prototype.
During customer discussions, it is essential to identify the basic customer needs. Frequently, customers will try to express their needs in terms of HOW the need can be satisfied and not in terms of WHAT the need is. This limits consideration of development alternatives. Development and marketing personnel should ask WHY until they truly understand what the root need is. Breakdown general requirements into more specific requirements by probing what is needed. Challenge, question and clarify requirements until they make sense. Document situations and circumstances to illustrate a customer need. Address priorities related to each need. Not all customer needs are equally important. Use ranking and paired comparisons to aid to prioritizing customer needs. Fundamentally, the objective is to understand how satisfying a particular need influences the purchase decision.
In addition to obtaining an understanding of customer needs, it is also important to obtain the customer's perspective on the competition relative to the proposed product. This may require follow-up contact once the concept for the product is determined or even a prototype is developed. The question to resolve is: How do competitive products rank against our current or proposed product or prototype?
Define an overall strategy for products to guide selection of development projects;
Define target markets, customers, competitive strengths, and a competition strategy (e.g., competing head-on or finding a market niche);
Position planned products relative to competitive products and identify what will differentiate or distinguish these products from the competition;
Rationalize these competing development projects and establish priorities for development projects;
Provide a high-level schedule of various development projects; and
Estimate development resources and balance project resource requirements with a budget in the overall business plan.
Few companies have a formal new product planning process, let alone a rigorous process. While a new product plan is generally prepared on an annual basis, it should be reviewed and updated at least quarterly, if not monthly. Market conditions will change, new product opportunities will be identified, and new product technology will emerge all causing a potential impact to the product plan.
Once a new product plan is established which defines the target market and customers, the next step is to plan how to capture these customer's needs for each development project. This includes determining how to identify target customers, which customers to contact in order to capture there needs, what mechanisms to use to collect their needs, and a schedule and estimate of resources to capture the voice of the customer (project plan for product definition phase).
As opportunities are identified, appropriate techniques are used to capture the voice of the customer. The techniques used will depend on the nature of the customer relationship as illustrated below. There is no one monolithic voice of the customer. Customer voices are diverse. In consumer markets, there are a variety of different needs. Even within one buying unit, there are multiple customer voices (e.g., children versus parents). This applies to industrial and government markets as well. There are even multiple customer voices within a single organization: the voice of the procuring organization, the voice of the user, and the voice of the supporting or maintenance organization. These diverse voices must be considered, reconciled and balanced to develop a truly successful product.
Traditionally, Marketing has had responsibility for defining customer needs and product requirements. This has tended to isolate Engineering and other development personnel from the customer and from gaining a first hand understanding of customer needs. As a result, customer's real needs can become somewhat abstract to other development personnel.
Product development personnel need to be directly involved in understanding customer needs. This may involve visiting or meeting with customers, observing customers using or maintaining products, participating in focus groups or rotating development personnel through marketing, sales, or customer support functions. This direct involvement provides a better understanding of customer needs, the customer environment, and product use; develops greater empathy on the part of product development personnel, minimizes hidden knowledge, overcomes technical arrogance, and provides a better perspective for development decisions. These practices have resulted in fundamental insights such as engineers of highly technical products recognizing the importance to customers of ease of use and durability rather than the latest technology.
Where a company has a direct relationship with a very small number of customers, it is desirable to have a customer representative(s) on the product development team. Alternately, mechanisms such as focus groups should be used where there are a larger number of customers to insure on-going feedback over the development cycle. Current customers as well as potential customers should be considered and included. This customer involvement is useful for initially defining requirements, answering questions and providing input during development, and critiquing a design or prototype.
During customer discussions, it is essential to identify the basic customer needs. Frequently, customers will try to express their needs in terms of HOW the need can be satisfied and not in terms of WHAT the need is. This limits consideration of development alternatives. Development and marketing personnel should ask WHY until they truly understand what the root need is. Breakdown general requirements into more specific requirements by probing what is needed. Challenge, question and clarify requirements until they make sense. Document situations and circumstances to illustrate a customer need. Address priorities related to each need. Not all customer needs are equally important. Use ranking and paired comparisons to aid to prioritizing customer needs. Fundamentally, the objective is to understand how satisfying a particular need influences the purchase decision.
In addition to obtaining an understanding of customer needs, it is also important to obtain the customer's perspective on the competition relative to the proposed product. This may require follow-up contact once the concept for the product is determined or even a prototype is developed. The question to resolve is: How do competitive products rank against our current or proposed product or prototype?