The process of new product design and development is shown in the graphic above. Below is a brief explanation of each of the steps involved in the process.
Idea Generation
During the process of idea generation, firms go through many different ideas that stem from various internal and external sources and sometimes crowdsourcing efforts. On a much smaller scale, my group engaged in this step of new product design and development, relying only on internal idea sources.
Idea Screening
Sorting through these ideas is a delicate process, known as idea screening, which firms hope will result in the narrowing of the vast number of ideas down to a few, solid, feasible product concepts. For our group, the product idea for a children’s smartphone came as the result of idea screening.
Concept Development and Testing
During the process of concept development, a firm takes the product idea it produced through the first two steps and creates various versions of the product. Through testing, the firm can determine which version of the product would appeal most to consumers. As a group, we used the same process to determine which version of the iPhone K would be most beneficial to consumers.
Marketing Strategy Development
Based on the product, marketing strategy development allows for an initial plan to be created in order to reach consumers. It is a three-part process that consists of:
- Describe the target market; planned value proposition; and sales, market share, and profit goals.
- Outline the planned price, distribution, and marketing budget of the product.
- Describe the planned long-run sales, profit goals, and marketing mix strategy.
We followed each of these steps when developing the marketing strategy for the iPhone K. We identified our target market as concerned parents, set the price at $499, and described the financial plan in great detail.
Business Analysis
During the process of business analysis, sales, costs, and profit projections are studied to determine whether or not these projections are in line with the firm’s objectives. We used data from Apple’s previous sales, costs, and profits to conduct a business analysis of the iPhone K during our market planning assignment.
Product Development
In this step, the product concept is turned into a physical product through the process of product development. This is the stage in which our group determined the best course of action to take was to make the iPhone K with the same hardware as the iPhone 5C.
Test Marketing
During this step of the process, the firm uses test marketing to introduce the product to realistic market settings. This step is a safe way to test the marketing efforts before launching the product. We created a plan for executing this process as part of our market planning assignment.
Commercialization
The final step of the new product design and development process, commercialization, involves bringing the new product to the market. In the case of the iPhone K, we did not carry out this step, but we made plans to.
To read more about our efforts to design and develop the iPhone K, please follow the following link to our market planning assignment.
Learning Portfolio 