Now you need to add those ideas generated from your Brainstorming session to your Product Roadmap. We suggest the following process:-
1) The first key step is to match the New Product Ideas to the Technology Roadmap. If the Idea does not match up to the Technology available then the capability to bring it to market will be extremely limited and the cost of developing the appropriate technology will have to be taken into consideration.
2) The Business Case should be thoroughly reviewed in terms of potential Market, Unit Cost, Selling Price, Volume, Resources etc
3) Products generating the greatest IRR (Internal Rate of Return) should be given priority.
4) Only when the above process has been followed and New Product Ideas meet the required Company criteria should the New Product Development commence.
By pursuing a New Product Development process which follows a defined Product Roadmapping process you will ensure that New Product Developments are resourced effectively and time to market is minimized which brings maximum returns.
To increase the success ratio in New Product Development it is essential that your company has its own New Product Development Roadmap.
This Roadmap highlights the Products your organization intends to develop in the coming years. These product developments should be based on sound market intelligence, garnered from current customers and taking into account market developments and competitor analysis.
The New Product Roadmap doesn’t just identify market opportunities. It also takes into account the Technologies, Resources, Finances, Production Capacity etc etc so that the whole Organization knows exactly what needs to be put in place so that that the New Products are launched successfully.
The New Product Roadmap needs to be approved at the very top of the Organization. It is a “living document” which should be reviewed on a regular basis and updated as required.
The adoption of a New Product Roadmap clarifies the direction the organization is headed in and ensures that everyone is “singing from the same Hymn sheet”
“If you don’t know where you’re headed any road will take you there”
Most would agree that Apple is one of the most innovative and successful companies involved in new product development. However even they have had their fair share of Bloopers, so lets take a look at some of them:-
The Mac TV was released in 1993 and was Apple’s first attempt to integrate the functionality of a P.C with a cable ready T.V. Unforthunately it’s slow bus speed of 16 MHz made for a slow P.C compared to it’s rivals and a very expensive T.V at over $2000. Needless to say it flopped and only 10k were produced.
Apple’s first attempt at a portable computer was the Macintosh portable. Released in 1989 it was way ahead of its time, and so it should have been at a whopping $6500. It weighed in at a hefty 7.2kg and had an active matrix LCD screen which was fantastic but the major contributor to its cost.
In 1995 Apple licensed its PIPPIN technology to Bandai to make a PC based game consol. The only problem was the competition, SEGA, SONY, Nintendo and PC based systems were already dominating the market. Only 42,000 PIPPIN units sold and it was withdrawn from the market.
O.K, you get the picture. Even the most innovative companies have their fair share of commercial failures. Typically this may run as high as 8 failures for every 2 successes, following the well known Pareto rule.
Less successful companies will have an even higher failure rate and in many cases this will lead to their ultimate demise.
So how should an organization skew the playing field to ensure a higher success rate ?
That will be the subject of the next post.
Until then, just remember, failure breeds success.
is vital to maintain a companies revenue growth. All products have a similar lifecycle which ends with declining revenue although the timescale between introduction and extinction may be anywhere between a few weeks to decades.
Unless New Product Development brings a steady stream of products to market the companies revenue will gradually decline.
Of course it is vital that the products being developed have a clearly defined market otherwise the costs of development will outweigh any increase in revenue.
Being in touch with the customers needs is the only way to increase the rate of success.
Are your products taking to long to develop and adversely affecting your revenue stream ? Time to Market is absolutely critical in determining product revenue and payback. With product lifecycles becoming ever shorter as new, better, faster models are introduced the development timescale is critical to success. Every day lost in development is a day lost in sales. This is because the overall lifecycle of the product is reduced the longer the development takes.
This may, at first, seem counterintuitive as the product is deemed to have, say, a 12 month sales life following release to the market but this takes no account of the competition which may already have a better model in development. Consequently each day of lost sales is gone forever and never recovered.
If you want to stay ahead of the competition and maximize payback for your developments you need to minimize product development timescales.
No one should pretend that this is easy. There is a fine balance to be struck between developing a quality product which meets the customers requirements as well as any in-house and external Quality approvals. The product development process needs to be robust and well defined.
Your in-house development process will probably be similar to the typical ISO9001 process below.
Sometimes the only way to generate time to market reduction is to have a look at the process with a fresh “set of eyes”