SESSION 1 - INTRODUCTIONS AND COURSE OVERVIEW

* WHY DO WE NEED TO STUDY NPD (NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT)?

=> Accelerating innovation and business growth through innovation are the top business challenges

=> The challenge of creating radical innovation is viewed as the most important business issue of our
time

- But new product process is difficult as hell, as 40% of new products fail.

- Lesson: Firms that maintain their commitment to new products are rewarded with sales and
profits!

- The new products process is all about teams

- In simple terms, marketers need to answer 3 key questions: what do we stand for (marketer) ;
what’s in it for me (buyer) ; why can I only get it from you? (Buyer, competition)
 SESSSION 2 - SETTING ORGANIZATIONAL PRODUCT AND SERVICE STRATEGY

1. Organizational Level Planning:

* Strategy process:

- The goal of SWOT analysis is to match the company’s strengths to attractive opportunities in the
environment, while eliminating or overcoming the weaknesses and minimising the threats

* Analysing the current business portfolio: The BCG Approach

* Product Strategy formulation – Ansoff's Matrix

2. Product Level Planning

* Definition: A product is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy a want or need,
including physical goods, services, experiences, events, persons, places, properties, organizations,
information, and ideas.

* 5 product levels:

- Core Benefit: The core benefit is the fundamental need or wants that the customer satisfies when
they buy the product.
Example: the core benefit of a hotel is to provide somewhere to rest or sleep when away from
home.

- Basic/Generic Product: The generic product is a basic version of the product made up of only those
features necessary for it to function.

Example (hotel): this could mean a bed, towels, a bathroom, a mirror, and a wardrobe.

- Expected Product: The expected product is the set of features that the customers expect when
they buy the product.

Example (hotel): this would include clean sheets, some clean towels, Wi-fi, and a clean bathroom.

- Augmented Product: The augmented product refers to any product variations, extra features, or
services that help differentiate the product from its competitors.

Example (hotel): this could be the inclusion of a concierge service or a free map of the town in every
room.

- Potential Product: The potential product includes all augmentations and transformations the
product might undergo in the future. In simple language, this means that to continue to surprise and
delight customers the product must be augmented.

Example (hotel): this could mean a different gift placed in the room each time a customer stays. For
example, it could be some chocolates on one occasion, and some luxury water on another. By
continuing to augment its product in this way the hotel will continue to delight and surprise the
customer.

3. Product attributes and classifications

* Characteristics of a Product:

- Products (including services) can have both tangible and intangible attributes:

+ Tangibility: Most products are tangible in nature, customers can touch, seen or feel a product.

For example: car, book, computer.

+ Intangible Attributes: Service products are intangible in nature, services like, consultancy, banking,
insurance etc. The product may be combination of both tangible and intangible attributes like
restaurants, transportation.

+ Associated Attributes: The attributes associated with product may include physical features, brand,
packaging, warranty, guarantee, after sales services.

+ Exchange Value: Irrespective of the fact that whether the product is tangible or intangible, it
should be capable of being exchanged between buyer and seller for a mutually agreed price.

* 4 service characteristics: intangibility, inseparability, variability, perishability.

* Consumer goods classification:

- Convenience products: are consumer products and services that the customer usually buys
frequently, immediately, and with a minimum comparison and buying effort

Ex: fast-food, newspapers, etc

- Shopping products: are consumer products and services that the customer compares carefully on
suitability, quality, price, and style

Ex: cars, appliances, etc

- Specialty products: are consumer products and services with unique characteristics or brand
identification for which a significant group of buyers is willing to make a special purchase effort

Ex: Medical services, Designer clothes, High-end electronics

- Unsought products: are consumer products that the consumer does not know about or knows
about but does not normally think of buying

Ex: life insurance, blood donations, etc

* Industrial goods classification:

4. Differentiation

* Product differentiation: Form; Features; Performance quality; Conformance quality; Durability;

Reliability; Reparability; Style; Customization.

* Service differentiation: Ordering ease; Delivery; Installation; Customer training; Customer

consulting; Maintenance and repair; Returns

5. Product life cycle

6. The goal-buyer adoption (the decision to start using smt)

* Stages in the adoption process: Awareness -> interest -> evaluation -> trial -> adoption

MAIN TEXTBOOK NOTES:

* 7 reasons why new products fail:

=> Trivial new products

=> Weak front-end homework

=> Lack of customer or User Input and Insights

=> Unstable product specs and project scope creep: unstable product and project definitions, which
keep changing as the project moves along.

=> Dysfunctional Project Teams, Too Many Functional Silos

=> Far Too Many Projects in the Pipeline—No Focus

=> A Lack of Competencies, Skills, and Knowledge

* 7 reasons why new products win:

=> A unique superior product—a differentiated product that delivers unique benefits and a
compelling value proposition to the customer or user—is the number one driver of new-product
profitability.

=> Building in the voice of the customer—a market-driven and customer-focused new-product
process

=> Doing the homework and front-end loading the project is key to success. Due diligence done
before product Development gets under way pays off!

=> Getting sharp and early product and project definition—and avoiding scope creep and unstable
specs—means higher success rates and faster to market.

=> Spiral development—build, test, get feedback, and revise—putting something in front of the
customer early and often gets the product right.

=> A well-conceived, properly executed launch is central to new-product success. And a solid
marketing plan is at the heart of the launch.

=> Speed counts! There are many good ways to accelerate development projects, but not at the
expense of quality of execution: First in will win!

* Building success drivers

- Make sure your idea-to-launch system includes actions as well as decision criteria that yield bold,
differentiated products with a compelling value proposition for the customer. Most systems do not,
and so they miss the number one profit driver!

- Build a hefty dose of VoC and market information work into your system—make VoC a mandatory
action. This tends to be a weak area generally, so it needs bolstering.

- Ensure that projects are front-end loaded; thus, build a robust “Homework stage” or two (perhaps
a “light homework” stage followed by a “Heavy homework” stage) before Development gets under
way. Again, due diligence is missing in many development projects, so the key front-end actions
must be emphasized in your system.

- Build in a step to secure fact-based integrated product and project definitions—to plant the
goalposts in the field. And get sign-off by all members of the project team and senior management.

- Incorporate spirals into your system—a series of build-test-feedback and-revise iterations to get
the product definition right in the face of fluid information and changing requirements.
- Execution of the market launch is vital; thus, make the development of a launch plan a key
ingredient in your system (with the input and agreement of the functional areas that will execute the
plan).

- Speed (or time-to-market) is an issue and accelerated development has many potential benefits,
but many downsides, too. Five sensible ways to accelerate developments were highlighted above—
build these into your idea-to-launch system.
 SESSION 3: NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

1. What is it & why is it important?

* Importance: Today, new products account for a staggering 28 percent of company sales, on average.
That is, more than one- fourth of the revenues of corporations are coming from products they did not
sell three short years ago. In some dynamic industries, the figure is 100 percent! Profits follow closely,
with 28.3 percent of company profits derived from new products three years old or newer. The
message is simple: Either innovate or die!

* 4 innovation drivers:

- Technology advances: The world’s base of technology and know-how increases at an exponential
rate, making possible solutions and products not even dreamed of a decade or so ago.

- Changing customer needs: Marketplaces are also in turmoil, with market needs and wants, and
customer preferences changing regularly.

- Shortening product life cycles: Product life cycles have been cut by a factor of about four over the
last fifty years. Your new product no longer has a life of five to ten years.

- Increased globalization: We have access to new and foreign markets like never before, but at the
same time, our domestic market has become someone else’s international one.

* 6 different types of new products are identified:

- New-to-the-world products: These new products are the first of their kind and create an entirely
new market. This type represents only 10 percent of all new products and is shrinking.

- New-product lines: These products, although not new to the marketplace, nonetheless are quite new
to the particular firm.

- Additions to existing product lines: These are new items to the firm, but they fit within an existing
product line the firm makes. They may also represent a fairly new product to the marketplace.

- Improvements and revisions to existing products: These “not-so-new” products are essentially
replacements of existing products in a firm’s product line. They offer improved performance or greater
perceived value over the “old” product.

- Repositionings: These are essentially new applications for existing products and often involve
retargeting an old product to a new market segment or for a different application.

- Cost reductions: These are the least “new” of all new-product types. They are new products designed
to replace existing company products, but they yield similar benefits and performance at lower cost.
From a marketing standpoint, they are not new products; but from a design and production viewpoint,
they could represent significant change.
2. Standardize, adapt or innovate?

* Standardization:

- Products are neither modified nor are the marketing approach changed

- A company assumes “one size fits all” strategy and tries to infiltrate foreign markets.

- Standardization is very cheap and efficient although it doesn’t have as good a chance of penetrating
the new market as adaptation does.

* Adaptation:

- Modification or changing the features of a product to reach new customers or new markets.

- It may also include manufacturing a new product with basis of customizations of a product already
in existence.

- Traditionally, product adaptation has been taken to mean modifying in-house products, but it also
involves taking points from a competitor’s product.

- Product adaptation is vital for companies that export their goods to foreign nations as it enables
them to meet the foreign laws and regulations.

- Adaptions also demand the use of different marketing and selling strategies in the foreign market.

Attribute Adaptation

❖ Tangible adaptation – this involves changing a product’s physical aspects such as size and
❖ packaging
❖ Intangible adaptation – here, a company will modify intangible elements such as positioning
and brand name
❖ Promotional adaptation – this involves changing methods and types of advertising as well as
the
❖ media of choice.
❖ Price adaptation – a company adopting this type of adaptation has to change size or quantity
of
❖ their product to account for the changed
* Innovation

* 4 vectors drive successful innovation – The innovation diamond

Vector 1: A product innovation & Technology strategy to focus on the right arenas – a strategy that
focuses your business R&D efforts on the most attractive arenas

Vector 2: Foster a climate, culture, organization and leadership that promote bolder innovation
Those businesses that create a positive climate for innovation, support innovation at every
opportunity, reward and recognize innovators and successful development teams, and welcome ideas
from all employees do much better at product innovation. Similarly, having the right senior
leadership—men and women who drive and support the innovation effort with words as well as
through actions—is vital to success

Vector 3: Create big ideas for bold product-service solutions. Then drive these big concepts to market
quickly via an idea-to-launch system designed for major innovations.

Vector 4: Pick the winners via effective portfolio management.

3. New Product Development Process

- Encompasses all steps needed to take a product from concept to market availability, including

❖ identifying a market need

❖ researching the competitive landscape
❖ conceptualizing a solution
❖ developing a product roadmap
❖ building a minimum viable product

* NPD PROCESS

3.1. Idea Generation

- Internal idea sources: R&D and contributions from employees.

- External idea sources:

❖ distributors and suppliers

❖ competitors
❖ customers, because the new product development process should focus on creating customer
value.

3.2. Idea screening

- The reason is that product development costs rise greatly in later stages. Therefore, the company
will invest in the idea with the greatest return

3.3. Concept Development & Testing

- Attractive ideas must be developed into a product concept. A product concept is a detailed version
of the new product idea stated in meaningful consumer terms.

3.4. Marketing strategy development

- Consists of 3 parts:

❖ A description of the target market, the planned value proposition, and the sales, market share
and profit goals for the first few years
❖ An outline of the product’s planned price, distribution and marketing budget for the first year
❖ The planned long-term sales, profit goals and the marketing mix strategy.

3.5. Business Analysis

- Estimate sales: when the sales forecast is prepared, the firm can estimate the expected costs and
profits for a product, including marketing, R&D, operations etc.

- All the sales and costs figure together can eventually be used to analyse the new product’s financial
attractiveness.

3.6. Product Development

- Up to this point only a word description, a drawing or perhaps a rough prototype

- Develop concept or drawings/design into a physical product

- R&D and engineering costs cause a huge jump in investment

- Develop and test one or more physical versions of the product concept.

- Developing a successful prototype can a long time

3.7. Market testing

- Proposed marketing program is tested in realistic market settings.

- The amount of test marketing necessary varies with each new product.

- When the risks are high, or when the firm is not sure of the product or its marketing program, a

lot of test marketing may be carried out.

3.8. Commercialization

Test marketing gives management the information needed Commercialization means nothing else
than introducing a new product into the market
 SESSION 4: Idea Generation and Voice of Customer

1. Product Innovation Charter (PIC) - điều lệ đổi mới sản phẩm

- To chart the new product team’s direction (technologies/markets)

- To set the team’s goals and objectives

- To set the “ground rules”

* Contents of PIC:

* Marketing Mypopia (thiển cận trong mkt)

2. Idea generation
- How to generate ideas:

❖ Studying competitors
❖ Informal customer / designer meetings
❖ Focus groups discussions (customers/suppliers/other)
❖ ‘Time off’ – staff allocated exploratory time
❖ Customer surveys – what works / doesn’t work
❖ Customer observations
❖ Iterative groups; customer/designer teams generating ideas and simultaneously testing
❖ Key work searches – online scanning for new products
❖ Trade shows
❖ Supplier partnerships and collaboration
❖ Centralised and accessible ‘idea vault’

- Obstacles to idea generation:

- Required inputs to the Creation Process:

❖ Form (the physical thing that will be created or, for the steps to the service process)
❖ Technology (the source from which the form will be attained)
❖ Benefit/Need (benefit to the customer as seen by the customer)

- Adopting creativity techniques:

Morphological analysis:

❖ Break up the object into its key components

❖ List all the different ideas we have for each component
❖ Look for unusual combinations that spark ideas

3. Involving the Customer in NPD

- Customer involvement: Drawing on customer knowledge in product development should enable the
supplier to develop products and services that provide more value and are superior in solving
customer problems

- Customer roles in NPD:

- Customers’ input into the new service development process:

 SESSION 5: PRODUCT CONCEPT TESTING

* Problem-based concept generation:

* Solving the problem

- Group creativity methods/ Brainstorming: Deferral of judgment & Quantity breed quality

- Rules for brainstorming sessions:

❖ No criticism allowed
❖ Nothing should slow the session down
❖ Combination and improvement of ideas

* Develop a concept statement:

- A statement about anticipated product features (form & technology) that will either:

❖ Yield relative benefit to competition

❖ Solve problems to existing solutions

- The importance of getting reactions/responses to concepts is NOT simply generating ideas

* Purpose of concept testing:

- Eliminate poor concepts

- Preliminary estimate of sales or trial rate (Buying intentions, early sales projections, market share)

- To help develop the idea (e.g. tradeoff among attributes)

* Procedure for concept testing

- Prepare a concept statement

- Clarify specific purposes

- Determine price(s)

- Select respondent type(s)

- Select response situation

- Define the interview

- Conduct trial interviews

- Interview, tabulate, analyse

* Concept testing responses:

* Opportunity identification and selection

 SESSION 6: MARKETING RESEARCH & CONCEPT TESTING

1. What is Marketing Research?

- Marketing research is the systematic design, collection, analysis, and reporting of data and findings
relevant to a specific marketing situation facing the company.

- Basic research is conducted to expand our knowledge rather than to solve a specific problem.

- Applied research is conducted to solve specific problems.

- Designed to provide a few key concepts & key terms in marketing research

* Use of mkt research

- Identify marketing opportunities and problems

- Generate, refine, and evaluate potential marketing actions

- Monitor marketing performance

- Improve marketing as a process

2. Marketing research process

* Defining the problem and the research objectives

- This is the hardest step in the research process

+ Exploratory research: research used to investigate a problem which is not clearly defined

+ Descriptive research: describes the characteristics of the population or phenomenon studied

+ Causal research: evaluates whether two different situations have a cause-and-effect relationship

- Types of data: Primary data (information collected for the current research purpose) & Secondary
data (information that already exists somewhere)

- Research is often separated into:

❖ Qualitative research: focuses on obtaining data through open-ended and conversational

communication. This method is about “what” people think and “why” they think so.
Researchers opt for qualitative research to understand or explain the behavior, motivations,
and characteristics of people in a target group.
❖ Quantitative research: is the process of collecting and analyzing numerical data. It can be
used to find patterns and averages, make predictions, test causal relationships, and
generalize results to wider populations.
❖ Mix methods research

- Research approaches:

❖ observational research
❖ ethnographic research (a qualitative method where researchers observe and/or interact
with a study’s participants in their real-life environment)
❖ experimental research
❖ survey research

- Sampling plans

❖ A sample is a segment of the population selected for marketing research to represent the
population as a whole
❖ Types of samples:

- Research instruments: The questionnaire or survey is by far the most common research instrument

* Developing the research plan

3. Some methods of concept testing
 Session 7: Managing risk

* Observations regarding risks:

- Near the beginning of a project:

❖ the amounts at stake are usually low

❖ uncertainty of the outcome is very high

- The amounts at stake increase as the project progresses while the uncertainties remain high

* “Go” or “No Go” stages

* Market specific risks: 3 major areas when it comes to developing new hi-tech products

- Technology risk

- Management risk

- Market risk:

❖ Risk #1: The new product may not be what the customers want and need.
❖ Risk #2: The product development process may involve technical hurdles and operational
risks that must be overcome.
❖ Risk #3: Product development always comes with a financial risk.
❖ Risk #4: Sticking to only one development plan may lead to losing other, better,
opportunities.
❖ Risk #5: Conducting product development projects in an ill-timed manner.

* Reducing risks of New Product Development (Failure):

- Relative Advantage

- Compatibility

- Complexity

- Trial-ability
- Observability

* Risk assessment: (By Deakin Uni):

 Session 8: Designing Products

1. Product Design Elements

- Design: the totality of features that affect the way a product looks, feels, functions to a consumer

- Environmental issues are also playing an increasingly important role in product design and
manufacturing

* Packaging: All the activities of designing and producing the container for a product

- Packaging objectives:

❖ Identify the brand

❖ Convey descriptive and persuasive information
❖ Facilitate product transportation and protection
❖ Assist at-home storage
❖ Aid product consumption

* Labeling, warranties and guarantees

- Labeling: identifies, grades, describes, and promotes the product

- Warranties: formal statements of expected product performance by the manufacturer

- Guarantees: Promise of general or complete satisfaction

* Product Hierarchy:

* Product line (dòng sản phẩm): ví dụ như TH True Milk có các product line như nước uống, sữa
chua, sữa tươi

* Product mix:

- Width (how many product lines e.g. P&G detergents, toothpaste, soap, diapers, paper products)

- Product Line Length (total items in the mix)

- Depth (number of variants of each product line,(e.g.,regular/lite)

- Consistency (similarity in product use, distribution channel etc.)

* Product Line Strategy

- Line stretching:

❖ Down-market stretch: áp dụng đối với những doanh nghiệp đã có tên tuổi tại thị trường
trung – cao cấp, nhưng vẫn muốn duy trì doanh số tại thị trường thấp hơn – vì có thể mang
lại mức tiêu thụ cao.
❖ Up-market stretch: Chiến thuật này sẽ phù hợp với những thương hiệu lần đầu gia nhập thị
trường với các dòng sản phẩm phân khúc bình dân và lên phân cấp thị trường trung – cao
cấp về sau.
❖ Two-way stretch: có thể áp dụng chiến thuật này nếu đang tồn tại ở phân khúc tầm trung –
không thấp cũng không cao. Và khi muốn mở rộng danh mục sản phẩm, bạn sẽ muốn tiếp
cận thị trường mới là lên cao hoặc xuống thấp hay cả 2.

- Line filling: thêm một sản phẩm mới trong dòng sản phẩm

- Line modernization

- Line featuring

- Line pruning: loại bỏ một sản phẩm không sinh lời khỏi dòng sản phẩm

* Product Mix Pricing

- Phân khúc giá cả (Price lining): Đây là phương pháp định giá cả sản phẩm khác nhau với các mức
giới hạn khác nhau.

- Định giá bán kèm (Captive Pricing): Định giá bán kèm là một trong những chiến lược thu hút lợi ích
của người tiêu dùng và khuyến khích việc mua hàng bằng cách cung cấp một sản phẩm cơ bản với
mức giá thấp, khách hàng sẽ phải mua thêm các mặt hàng để có được giá trị đầy đủ của sản phẩm
mà họ cần

- Định giá theo gói (Bundled Pricing): Bundled Pricing là cách tiếp cận để bán sản phẩm và các sản
phẩm kèm theo, các phụ kiện để khách hàng lựa chọn như là một sản phẩm với một mức giá duy
nhất.

- Optional-feature Product Pricing: Giá giá sản phẩm đi kèm tùy chọn nhóm là việc sử dụng các sản
phẩm phụ đi kèm không bắt buộc với sản phẩm chính có nghĩa là có cũng được nhưng không có cũng
chẳng sao với mức giá thấp hơn khi khách hàng mua một sản phẩm chính

- By-product pricing: chiến lược định giá đối với một hoặc một nhóm sản phẩm, dịch vụ mà doanh
nghiệp cung ứng ra thị trường trong khoảng thời gian nhất định

- Two- part pricing: hình thức xác định giá trong đó giá của một sản phẩm hoặc dịch vụ bao gồm hai
phần – một khoản phí một lần và – một khoản phí cho mỗi đơn vị (tháng, sản phẩm…)

2. Product Development
- Product use testing: Product use under normal operating conditions

- Some terms:

❖ Alpha testing – done in-house: một dạng thử nghiệm chấp nhận nội bộ được thực hiện chủ
yếu bởi các nhóm kiểm thử phần mềm nội bộ và các nhóm thử nghiệm
❖ Beta testing – done at the customer site => To determine if the product works and is free of
bugs: giai đoạn thử nghiệm được sau chu kỳ kiểm tra alpha nội bộ. Đây là giai đoạn thử
nghiệm cuối cùng, nơi các công ty phát hành phần mềm cho vài nhóm người dùng bên ngoài
và bên ngoài nhóm kiểm thử của công ty hoặc nhân viên
 Session 9: Services Development

1. Defining services

- What is service? => A service is any act of performance that one party can offer another that is
essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything; its production may or may
not be tied to a physical product.

- Categories of Service Mix:

❖ A pure tangible good (e.g.,commodities/salt)

❖ A tangible good with accompanying services (e.g., car/computer)
❖ A hybrid (e.g., restaurant)
❖ A major service with accompanying minor goods/services (e.g., air travel)
❖ A pure service (e.g.psysiotherapy, legal service)

- Service distinctions:

❖ Equipment-based or people-based
❖ Service processes
❖ Client’s presence required or not
❖ Beauty salon vs car repair
❖ Personal needs or business needs
❖ Objectives and ownership

2. Characteristics of Services

- Intangibility:

❖ Service cannot be touched

❖ There is no precise standardization method for services
❖ Services cannot be patented
❖ There are no inventories in services
❖ The consumer is part of the service process because he consumes the service. Thus, either
the service must go to the customer or the customer has to come to the service

- Inseparability: Services are typically produced and consumed simultaneously

- Variability: The quality of services depends on who provides them, when and where, and to whom

- Perishability:

❖ Services cannot be stored

❖ Strategies to match demand & supply

3. The Service Mix & Services Design

* The 7Ps of Service Marketing:

* Flower of Service: Core and supplementary services are generally referred to as the Flower of
Service and can help firms to improve their service levels and overall client satisfaction – if
understood.

- There are two kinds of supplementary services:

❖ Facilitating supplementary services (Billing, payment, information, order-taking) – either

needed for service delivery, or help in the use of the core product
❖ Enhancing supplementary service (exceptions, safekeeping, hospitality, consultation) – add
extra value for the customer
4. Services Quality and Failure

- Consumer switching behaviour factor:

❖ Pricing
❖ Inconvenience
❖ Core service failure
❖ Service encounter failures
❖ Response to service failure
❖ Competition
❖ Ethical problems
❖ Involuntary switching
 Session 10: Market Testing

1. Market testing

- This is the stage where the product must be tried out in selected market segments.

- Market test is basically done as a risk control tool.

- It is experimental marketing at minimum cost and risk

- Test marketing is the stage at which the product & marketing programs are introduced into more
realistic market settings.

- Insights gained include:

❖ Solid sales forecast

❖ Diagnostic information to adjust program

* Consumer-Goods Market Testing

- This test is conducted to know the consumer behavior in terms of:

❖ Trial: Whether a consumer will try a product, at least once.

❖ Repeat: Whether the consumer will repurchase it after the trial.
❖ Adoption: Whether the consumer accepts the product and will purchase it again.
❖ Purchase Frequency: How often the consumer will buy the product.

2. Market testing methods

- Sales-wave research:

- Simulated Test Marketing

- Controlled test marketing

- Test markets
* Pros & Cons of Test Marketing:

Session 11: Commercialization

1. Organising the marketing effort

* Functional organization:

* Hub-and-spoke system:

* Matrix-management organization:
* Geographic organization:

* Product/Brand management organization:

- Brand/Product Manager Tasks:

❖ Develop long-range/competitive strategy

❖ Prepare marketing plan/sales forecast
❖ Work with agencies
❖ Increase support among sales force
❖ Gather intelligence
❖ Initiate product improvements

- Product-Management organization disadvantages:

❖ Managers may lack authority to carry out responsibilities

❖ Managers rarely achieve functional expertise
❖ Managers normally manage brand for a short time
❖ Market fragmentation makes it harder to develop national strategy

2. Pre-launch analysis

* Financial Analysis:

- Normal conducted after screening

- Helps you determine the costs and forecast profits in future financial years

- Business analysis will also help to eliminate inappropriate ideas and avoid unnecessary costs

* Finalize your product price: Review your market and competitor research and your feedback from
customers to determine the selling price of your product

* Price research:
- Your pricing – cover costs / make profit; compare favorable to your competitors.

- Your existing costs – fixed costs; expected cash flow.

- Your competitors’ pricing –how do they price?

* Re-forecast your sales volume: Recalibrate your estimate of the volume of the product sales you
anticipate based on your research and market test based upon:

❖ Customer needs
❖ Size of your existing customer base
❖ Size of the market

* Identify your break-even point: Estimate the profitability of your product, and determine your
breakeven point - the amount of product you need to sell to cover your fixed costs (such as rent,
electricity and wages).

* Consider the long term: Forecast the lifespan of your product in the market.

* Scope your marketing stategy:

- Review your overarching marketing strategy:

- Pre-launch – review each element of the marketing program (4/7 P’s) and reconfirm understanding
of costs

- Re-check positioning position your new product in the marketplace.

3. The consumer adoption process

* Stages in the adoption process:

- Awareness

- Interest

- Evaluation

- Trial

- Adoption: An individual’s decision to become a regular user of a product

* Factors influencing the Adoption Process

- Readiness to try new products and personal influence

A-T-A-R Hierarchy:

- Characteristics of the innovation (Relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, communicability)

4. Adjusting the Marketing Mix

* 5 elements of promotional mix:

* 3 methods of distribution:

5. Pitching
* Internal Marketing: requires that everyone in the organization accept the concepts and goals of
marketing and engage in identifying, providing, and communicating customer value

* Pitching your Product or Service:

- INTRODUCTION: Establish common ground and grab attention.

- BIG IDEA: What is the main idea or essence of the project?

- WHY: Who is the target audience and what is your value proposition?

- STATUS: What is the status of the project?

- THE ASK: What you are looking for right now? What is success for this pitch?

6. Implementation and control

- Marketing implementation: The process that turns marketing plans into action assignments and
ensures they accomplish the plan’s stated objectives

- Marketing control: The process by which firms assess the effects of their marketing activities and
programs and make necessary changes and adjustments

- Annual plan control:

Marketing metrics:

❖ Sales metrics
❖ Customer readiness to buy metrics
❖ Customer metrics
❖ Distribution metrics
❖ Communication metrics