Managing Products

New Product Development Process

Because introducing new products on a consistent basis is important to the future success of many organizations, marketers in charge of product decisions often follow set procedures for bringing products to market.  In the scientific area that may mean the establishment of ongoing laboratory research programs for discovering new products (e.g., medicines) while less scientific companies may pull together resources for product development on a less structured timetable.

In this section we present a 7-step process comprising the key elements of new product development.  While some companies may not follow a deliberate step-by-step approach, the steps are useful in showing the information input and decision making that must be done in order to successfully develop new products.  The process also shows the importance market research plays in developing products. 

We should note that while the 7-step process works for most industries, it is less effective in developing radically new products.  The main reason lies in the inability of the target market to provide sufficient feedback on advanced product concepts since they often find it difficult to understand radically different ideas.  So while many of these steps are used to research breakthrough ideas, the marketer should exercise caution when interpreting the results.