Essential Stages of New Product Development 

It can be difficult to build new products or services. Businesses can gain clarity and confidence by following the new product development process.

Stage 1: Concept Development

It is important to generate many essential stages of product development and valuable ideas that will form the basis for the new product development strategy. Stage 1 should have a primary focus on organizing brainstorming sessions that solve customer problems.

This phase does not aim to generate fool proof ideas that can be implemented immediately. Discuss raw, unproven ideas that could be shortlisted later.

How a business can achieve this:

Emphasize customer problems.

A problem described well is only half solved. This is how you identify the problems that your target audience faces:

a. Personal Problems

To come up with an idea, it is good to focus on the problems the business faces. A business can simply focus on a specific problem and create a solution that is universal to all of the problems.

b. Classify each of the listed problems.

This step allows you to verify the feasibility of the problems that have been shortlisted and the solutions that are based on the 4U approach of Michael Skok, founder of Startup Secrets. The 4U stands for:

A deeper examination of each aspect will give you more clarity.

Unworkable Determine if the product ideas are feasible. Is the product able to meet customer experience needs? Will it be market-ready?

Unavoidable: Does the product solve an unavoidable problem? It is important to determine if solving the problem is an option or a requirement.

Urgent: Does the problem need to be solved immediately? If so, then this may be an opportunity to fill the gap in the market by introducing the original product.

Inaccessible: Is there no product that addresses the user's problem? Keep an eye out for opportunities in the market, and don't lose heart if you find one that seems promising.

c. Possible Solutions

Once a problem is identified, it's time for you to start looking for solutions. There should be a new product development opportunity for every user problem.

This is the workflow that begins with a problem and ends with strategizing about the solution.

No matter how common the problem may be, the solution must be unique. You can make sure that your product solves problems differently even if it is already available.

Slack and Zoom, for example, are SaaS products that promote collaboration and communication. Zoom, however, does it differently, allowing for the conduct of webinars. Webinars are the unique selling point of Zoom (USP).

Stage 2: Idea Evaluation

The New Product Development stage focuses on choosing the best idea to succeed. All ideas are welcome for internal review. This means that you should turn to industry experts and people who have experience in the field to screen your ideas.

A proof of concept (POC), which helps to verify the feasibility of a product idea, is essential for any new product development idea. It is futile to zero in on an idea that isn't technically feasible.

The Agile Development team is available for consultation. Their technical expertise can help you understand the technical side of things. This can then be used to shortlist ideas that are worth developing a PoC for.

Stage 3: Concept Development & Testing

It is important to start the new product development process by creating a detailed version and user stories.

The first step to concept development and testing is this value proposition evaluation. It helps to identify potential problems early and allows the team to correct them. This helps ensure that technical debts do not accumulate.

The chance of [your] startup's idea failing is 17% if it is a poor product. -CBI Insights.

These are the easy-to-follow steps for developing concepts:

Gain/Pain Rate Calculation

The business must create a clear picture of the product as seen by the user. Calculating the gain/pain ratio is one way to do this.

Customers gain from the product. What's in it for them? "Pain is defined as a customer's efforts to understand and use the product.

Performing a Competitor Analysis

It is important to be aware of the market leaders in your industry. It is easier to understand the competition.

Where the competition lacks?

What are the opportunities for improvement?

White space on the market

List the key product features

A business's success or failure will depend on the user stories that are included in the New Product Development Software project. When creating a list, it is crucial to understand what makes a feature innovative and how it will solve a problem.

Create a Value Proposition Chart

It is not easy to convince someone of the value and utility of an idea. But it is much easier to communicate that message to them in context. The end-user must have a clear understanding of what the product can do.

A value proposition chart is a great way to show this clean and presentable style. This value proposition chart should contain:

Concept Testing

Now it's time to present the value proposition to selected customers. The outcome of all the work so far will be a measure of how they view the idea. It is a good idea to go back to the idea screening process to create a new product if the idea is not promising.

Get meaningful insight by focusing on these four crucial aspects:

Identification of the target group, i.e., the people who would most benefit from the product currently under development.

Evaluation of alternative options that could be presented to the focus group.

A fool proof plan for new product development that covers all stages, including pricing, marketing, and distribution.

Products' unique features are positioned in the minds of customers to increase discoverability and findability.

A concept testing report should look something like this:

Stage 4-Market Strategy/Business Analysis

A marketing strategy is about creating a way for the target audience to reach you. The best and easiest way to market a new product development project is to use McCarthy's 4Ps marketing strategy.

1. Cost-Based Pricing Model

The initial production cost of the product is multiplied by the markup percentage to arrive at the final price.

Using the cost-plus pricing method

Production cost = technology cost + development cost + licencing cost = $100. % of markup = 50% Price = $150

A business analysis team can apply the psychological pricing trick to increase conversions. This is when the final price is reduced by 5 or 9 digits.

If psychological pricing is in play, the $150 price will be $149.9.

Market-Focused Prices

The pricing of similar products in the target markets is analyzed thoroughly.

Market-oriented pricing follows the following trajectory:

What factors should you consider when choosing a competitive price?

Above Market: Higher prices are appropriate when developing new products that solve urgent customer problems.

Copy Market: It is safer to sell the product at the same price as your competitors. To score higher than the competitor, however, marketing efforts must be increased.

Customers who are loyal and can be converted into customers over time should be attracted by a lower price than their competitors.

Stage 5: Product Development

Once the new product development idea is in place, the market strategy is documented, and the business analysis is completed, it's time to move forward with product life-cycle development.

Start with the prototyping, followed by the MVP.

Prototype

This is where the UI/UX of the product is created. It is then shared with all stakeholders. This allows you to visualize how the product will look, and whether it conforms with ergonomics best practices.

Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

This section focuses on creating user stories in Agile for the new product. These will make it stand out from the rest. After the development and testing have been completed, the MVP can be launched on the market. The initial response will determine the future iterations.

Stage 6:Deployment

Once the MVP is complete, the focus shifts from product development to deployment in the real world. This involves embracing the DevOps culture and implementing CI/CD.

The various stages of implementation are:

Commit:

This stage includes:

The new features have been integrated with the code of the existing features.

The Quality Assurance team ensures that the code is working fine.

Tools such as Jenkins automate unit and sanity testing to verify code's effectiveness.

Build

This stage includes:

Developers push software artifacts into a registry using Docker tools like Gradle, Packer, and AZK.

Alpha Deployment

This stage includes:

Developers test new builds and interactions between them.

Beta Deployment

This stage includes:

The new product was manually tested to verify its overall performance, taking into account all input scenarios.

Production Deployment

This stage includes:

The product has been pushed into the live environment.

Stage 7: Market Entry/Commercialization

Commercialization is a broad term that encompasses many strategies to ensure success with a new product. Here's what commercialization means. These are the must-do marketing actions that will help your product gain traction:

Marketing the Concept over the Product

This is the idea: instead of bragging about product features, talk about the concept and the product's intent. Simply put, tell the customer how the product will simplify their lives.

HubSpot was a product of a marketer. It was not a huge success when it was launched. Unfortunately, the customers didn't understand the purpose of the now-favorable product.

They created awareness about inbound marketing and quickly became a leader in the software industry. Sometimes, all that a product needs to achieve the magnet effect is the right marketing.

Create a brand voice

A unique mindset and a unique voice always get an all-ears audience. The marketing team plays an important role in this. The marketing team must establish a communication style that is effective and represents the brand in the best way.

Conducting Intriguing Webinars

A webinar is a great way to get quality leads. Webinars can be used to explain how the product will benefit your audience and the features being introduced.