Statista’s survey found that 29% of tech companies intended to develop new products. A significant increase in R&D efforts has been seen around new product development due to pandemic. Other tech companies focused on improving existing products rather than developing new ones.

Product discovery and addressing the pain points of the target audience are the keys to new product development success. Customer insights can be gained through surveying, interviews, social media monitoring, and ethnographic research. The process of discovering new products should be ongoing. It spans the product life cycle stages. Let us dive into the stages of developing a new product.

What is New Product Development?

Bringing new products to market is called new product development. Development includes the creation of a new product, updating an existing product, or reintroducing an old product. Companies are developing new products to maintain a competitive advantage in the market. A normal product development process involves building a product with a proof of concept. It focuses on the creation of a completely new idea, from conception through development and launch.

What is Most Important When Developing Easy to Use Products? 

Developing new products requires the coordination of many functions, which makes the process critical to companies. Marketing, engineering, and public relations are all part of the package. It involves a lot of people. Tasks are interconnected in a complex way. Any organization will benefit from an apparent process. Specifics include:

  • Checklists will tell you what each department needs to accomplish and when it needs to be done. In this way, everything will get done on time.
  • Teams that move quickly need clarity. In order to guide their efforts, they have developed a detailed plan.
  • A sense of trust and confidence is created from it since it ensures objectivity.
  • Any process relies on communication. Organizational leaders conduct formal “check-ins” during gate reviews. Information is provided to them, and leaders can ask questions and offer advice.
  • A defined process offers opportunities for continuous improvement.

It is clear that we need to revamp our product development process. Let’s use it as an innovation engine by understanding its significance.

Stages of the New Product Development Process

Each journey to a finished product is different when it comes to the new product development process. However, product development processes vary from company to company. Basically, there are 7 stages of the new product development process. We’ll take a closer look at each one.

1. Developing Ideas

An idea (or ideas) for a new product development begins with brainstorming a solution to an existing customer problem. You must always think of out-of-the-box ideas to solve customer problems. It’s essential to understand your target market and the pain points of the customer.

2. Research

You must do research once you have developed a product idea. To accomplish this, you can take the following steps:

  • Analyze the current state of the market. Find out if your product can fill any holes in the market, as well as its demand.
  • Identify what your competitors’ products and services lack. Adding these features to your product will make it more effective.

Customers can also provide early feedback about your ideas before deciding on a final design for your product. It is easy and quick to collect existing customers’ suggestions through surveys. Surveys must be designed with multiple-choice, open-ended questions. As part of this stage, you may need to iterate as you refine your concept. Before moving on to the next step, you should adjust the scope of your research.

3. Prepare a Plan

Planning refers to formulating a final product idea/description from your initial idea. Start planning how to make it a reality and research it.

Plan for what you will need to create your final product once you define it. In the case of a physical product, it is necessary to either source materials or finds manufacturing partners. As part of the planning process, evaluate how to market your product and determine prices that make sense. You should also identify the teams involved in your product development process, ranging from marketing to any external partners involved in production.

4. Prototyping

A prototyping phase involves creating a mock-up of a product for mass production. Prototypes are often called minimum viable products (MVP). Basically, this is a simplified version of your product. By understanding how it works, you can identify areas that need improvement. Testing and prototyping stages may alternate with each other during the development of a prototype.

5. Testing

You must test your product before it is launched. To make sure it meets customer needs and functions as advertised. At this point, you share your prototypes with the target audience and ask them for feedback. A real-world scenario is what you want to simulate when testing your product. In this way, you will know exactly why certain things work, and others don’t. Sometimes testing results will require you to modify your prototype. Once your prototype is ready, you will start developing your product to meet your customers’ needs.

6. Design and Development of Products

As part of this stage, the final product will be created for commercialization. Your prototype will be refined using the insights gained from testing your MVP. Each business type has its own product development process. If you run a SaaS business, your internal software development team would likely work on code finalization. A physical product can be designed by outsourcing certain components and assembled in a warehouse. Planning your product development should help you identify what will happen during your development.

7. Marketing

Introducing your new products to the market is the final step in the new product development process. Your brainstorming, research, and iterations have finally culminated in your audience’s ability to use it. To entice your audiences to become customers, you will implement marketing plans to make them aware of your new product. The final stage of launching a product is to make any necessary improvements according to customer feedback. Customers can always expect the best customer service based on market changes.

Conclusion

Product development is primarily focused on generating superior customer value. Market acceptance ensures the product’s success. Every company must assess the kind of commitment it needs to make for product production. The financial and administrative resources available to it will determine whether it can undertake such a commitment. There is no absolute structure that determines the success or failure of a product. All businesses looking to introduce a new product can certainly benefit from it as a starting point.