New Products Management, Research Paper Example

Describe the importance of Product Innovation Character (PIC) and how it relates to product platform issues? (Articles 6 Koen, et. Al and 11 Skold and Karlsson).

Factors to consider with product innovation are whether they will transform the future of globalization and will inherently change local activity. Inherently, innovation is a global issue that encumbers high costs associated with it. Costs cannot be transferred as easily as theory would have us believe in the corporate world. There are major circumstances such as social and political influences that are factored into its existence. Innovation is basically defined as the transformation of information and products into production or process into a service or product. Platform issues such as leadership style and ability play a significant role in the influence and production of managerial or organizations efficiency. With that said, positive managerial and organization habits have known to transform a company into an optimal performing organization. There are certain inherited financial risks associated with any firm. New product innovations are associated with any new product turnover. Profitability associated with risks is automatically assumed with new product development. Good management skills are necessary to minimize risks. Financial experts state capital risks cannot be accurately be predicted with new product development. The attempt to minimize cost control is the safest way to minimize risks associated with new product development assuming management is organized. Strong leadership skills can prove to be the inner key to interdisciplinary control over the company’s risks. Documented processes for an effective platform set precedence for effective introduction of new product start-ups. New product predictions are no longer limited to sales predictions. Research uses analogies of knowledge from theories of business plans to predict the future of new product development, as well.

Give a brief overview of ‘Strategic Management’ and its relation and significance to Scenario Planning (NPM 119-123 and 516-517 and Article 8 Schoemaker

This process is often used by businesses to make long term prediction or plans for the purpose of strategic planning. Often these plans are used to play through scenarios for future plans of the company without making risky moves. These role plays allow a company to spot potential weaknesses in their company as well as potential weaknesses in the opposing company. The military uses strategic management role play quite often before commencing a journey or putting a formal plan into action. The key steps to the role play are determining the objective question to be answered, setting a specific time in which the company wants the question answered, mapping out the driving forces and how the company plans to research the data to accomplish the goal, finding out the answers to objections, finding out the possible scenarios or outcomes (both positive and negative) and finally accessing the scenarios. After the completion of the scenarios, companies generate data patterns or trends to predict the most probable expectation from repeated test scenarios to try to ascertain a most probable outcome without failure. Companies often hire consulting agencies to test these theoretical as well as practical applications for them.

What are the best sources to find new product ideas for an existing business? (NPM 4 & 5 p. 509-514 and Article 12 Veryzer and de Mozota).

Most small to medium sized businesses depend on new product innovative ideas to prosper and continue their survival in this ever so competitive world. With that said often the potential short term risks can often outweigh the long term goals if a business finds an attractive new product to introduce into the market. According to Varadarjam, “Managers find themselves stumped with finding exactly what new products to introduce into the mainstream of a business sometimes during their career.” Introducing the wrong new product into the scheme of things can be the downfall of any business, especially a new business or a small business. Often right before introduction into the market a customer’s preference will immediately change, hence time is of the essence when introducing new products into the market. The Japanese have been extremely successful with new product development submersion into the market because of their ability to research new product development and carefully prepared plans of implementation. Successful entrepreneurs into the international markets such as Peter Doyle and John Sanders state a carefully prepared business plan is essential to implemental into the global community. Sampling questionnaires are very relevant just prior to implementation into the business world because they enable a company to justifiably predict what the customer wants ‘almost live’. It is true that a customer’s need may change just prior to product implementation and justifiably so, but if proper planning and timing is done correctly a plan should not fail.

What is the best avenue to determine just what a customer desires from new product development? (NPM 6 & 7 and Articles 10 Schreier and Prugl). How to determine the gaps in a competitor’s products?

A company determines what a customer’s desires and needs are by marketing plans that are essential to the growing market demands. This is accomplished through communications, sales reviews and strategies. The managers should identify the customer; take steps necessary to keep the customer and satisfy the needs and changing demands of the customers. This is further accomplished through ‘anticipating the future needs and wants of the customers’. The gap analysis is a useful tool to identify actual performance with potential performance. It can be used to access your company or a competitor’s performance to determine if your success can be gained through losses incurred from your competitor’s downfalls. This is a way of getting ahead of your competitors through a forecast or projection. A company would document their current performance in order to improve current deficiencies in order to improve quality. If a company is aware of any deficiencies in a competitor’s process they might capture this and improve on their process through use of this information in order to move a step ahead of their competitor through new product development in order to get a new product out quickly onto the market. Often previous data or government statistics including demographic data is used to make future predictions for a business forecasts. The product gap information can also be used to illustrate information of which a company does not offer or of which a company is exclusively limited to offer.

What are the purposes of a Cumulative Expenditures Curve in business? How is it most effectively used? (NPM 8-12).

The Cumulative Expenditures Curve is used in business to estimate the (EV) earned value of Project Success in Project Management. EV is a very early or premature indicator to the success expected in Project Management of a business. Scope, cost and time of a project is quantitatively measured as a project proceeds. In order to quantify and EV a Work Breakdown Schedule (WBS) must be implemented into the plan. Once cost accumulation is determined then a curve can be accurately designed and developed to follow. The cost curve against work to be accomplished is called the (PV). Managers attempt to stay on a 40 hour or 80 hour plan when assessing a project. This is a standard for all project managers. The points on the curve are often referred to as the S-Curve. These points are then accurately given percentages of which values are attached to give meaning to compare them to against a projected plan. Costs are estimated by inputs, cost-modeling techniques and expert predictions.

Works Cited

Crawford, C. & Benedetto, A. New Products Management New York: McGraw/Hill-Irwin, 2007.