ISO 13485:2016
DEVICE DEVELOPMENT
ISO 13485:2016
DEVICE DEVELOPMENT
Product development is the marriage between creativity and the needs, often unrecognized, of the market. Nothing new is created under the Sun, but creativity and its sister ingenuity are the Muses of successful product development.
However, the failure rate for new products and services can be as high as 90%, according to Forbes, so it’s vital that before getting started, you follow these five steps to launch your new product.
The starting point is identifying what is missing in your field. Do this through market research, customers’ feedbacks, and analyze this information to spot what is missing. Often it’s not about coming up with something completely new, but instead, something that improves on what has already been created.
Doing your market research will enable you to understand the needs of the customers, but more importantly, pinpoint what their needs that have been fulfilled with what is already available are.
Look to the competition and even expand your horizons beyond the limitations of your market niche. Often a solution will come from a different field. Think outside the box. To accomplish this, tap into the experience and knowledge of your managers, clients, and suppliers. Talk to everyone that is involved in the field.
Now that you have gathered all your information, it’s time to make sense of the data and spot the market trends and see how your business’s strategic vision aligns with what the market needs.
Analyze the product’s segment(s) and do an in-depth exploration of the buying trends in development. This is also the time to research the cost entailed in R&D. Plus don’t forget to watch what others in your field are developing — time to focus on due diligence.
In this phase, you are ready to get your hands dirty and get to work – time to move from analysis to the drawing board and to test out the possibilities. It’s in this phase that you want to fail, but fail well and learn from all the trial and errors.
Time to test the product. Get opinions from your leading users, who are the ones in the trenches able to foresee future needs and improvement. Make sure you have an expert team around you from various disciplines to help you with design, engineering, production, and also marketing experts to help you reach your customers.
This is the time to think holistically about your product: from usage to production, and to how it will be marketed.
During the concept development, you may have collected enough data, and you may even feel that it’s ready. Not so fast. The testing phase is crucial because you are widening the scope of who is interacting with the product, and this gives you ample opportunity to assess how your prototype is being used and received.
This is the time to create your focus groups of customers and prospects or to continue testing it with existing customers. Look to early adopters and how they can help you spot the pros and cons of the product and where you need to focus on improvements.
Use your focus group to help you see how the product can stand out, help you with establishing a competitive price point and perhaps even foresee future developments.
Now that the product has been designed, tested, and improved, you are ready to position your product in the market. This is the stage in which you need to take further into account the economic, but also functional and emotional factors that make up the product. This is the time to be grateful for all the research with the focus groups because from those questions, and their feedback will come much of the language and strategy you will use now to launch your product.
At this stage, you want to rely heavily also on the why of your product and bring out the heart of your brand image through communication and the intangible attributes of your product. This is where design, efficiency, and innovative solutions all come into play together with the platforms you use to showcase the product.
Competition is intense in any field, so this if you want to launch a new product successfully you need to plan carefully, keep in mind the human factor, and partner up with an industry expert company that lives and breathes product development.
Understanding the unique characteristics of your market is vital to creating innovative products that you help you stand out from the competition. Nectar’s broad portfolio in diverse fields is what helps us help you create successful and innovative products.
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Forbes reference: https://www.forbes.com/sites/iese/2016/06/01/five-steps-to-develop-a-new-product/#22ca85472eef