Develop a New Product Development Strategy (Examples Included)

Top 5 Approaches to New Product Development Strategy

Product development strategies can enhance and support business positions through various approaches like prioritizing time to market, evaluating technology and market risk, leveraging a strong platform, incorporating customer insights, and internal processes to deliver optimal solutions.

1. Time-based Approach

This approach focuses on being first to market, fast following, or being a laggard. 

Being the first to introduce a new product category is proven to be advantageous and linked to long-term success. 

Fast followers capitalize on the innovator's experiences, while laggards offer similar products as competitors. 

Companies benefiting the most are those that are first to market. For example, Apple, Uber, and Amazon. 

You can shorten time to market through techniques like an escalation process, streamlining product development and launch.

2. Ideation-process Approach

Emphasizes generating innovative ideas through brainstorming sessions to address customer needs or market gaps, and seeking input from internal stakeholders. 

Here's how it works:

- Customer Feedback: Collect feedback to understand customer needs and preferences.

- Focus Groups: Engage target customers in deeper discussions to gain insights.

- Brainstorming: Encourage creative thinking within the product team to generate ideas.

- Internal Stakeholder Input: Seek input from internal teams for diverse perspectives.

- Market Analysis: Consider market share, demographics, and corporate strategy.

- Improve Existing Product: Identify areas for improvement based on user feedback.

- Early Validation: Validate ideas through prototypes for early feedback.

Product ideas are filtered based on criteria like time to market, risk assessment, platform strength, or customer insights. This process helps generate and prioritize concepts for further development.

3. Market-oriented Approach

This approach centers around understanding and meeting customers' needs by conducting thorough market research and aligning product development with target market demand. 

It includes different types:

- Innovators create new technologies for existing markets.

- Investors in technology acquire or partner with other entities.

- Searchers find new market applications for existing products.

- Business As Usual companies focus on existing products in current markets.

- Middle of the Road companies make incremental improvements to existing products and markets.

This approach allows businesses to align their efforts with market dynamics, technology advancements, and customer demands.

4. Platform-specific Approach

Develops products that align with specific platforms or technologies.

Platforms, resulting from extensive research and development, maximize revenue and business impact by enabling the creation of multiple new product offerings. 

Utilizing a platform reduces engineering and time requirements for subsequent product variants, making innovation processes more efficient. It also facilitates efficient entry into new target markets by creating derivatives within a product family. 

By capitalizing on existing design work and knowledge, you can streamline product development and enhance your competitive edge.

5. Customer-oriented Approach

Places the customer at the center of product development, incorporating their feedback and preferences to create products that deliver exceptional user experiences.

Design Thinking, a popular framework, is used to deeply understand customers and translate insights into successful products. 

The process includes:

- Product concept generation

- Planning

- Engineering

- Manufacturing

This approach focuses on customer requirements rather than competitors and can be part of an Agile Product Development process. It may involve creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for early market feedback. 

CTA: - The Ultimate Guide to MVP Development [Step-by-Step]

Customer-oriented approach is applicable to both new and existing products, emphasizing customer-centricity throughout the development process.

All these approaches are often combined to suit specific needs. The key is to select approaches that align with company resources, market dynamics, and overall strategy.

Here’s how to develop an effective product development strategy.