According to Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, there are over 30,000 new products introduced every year, and 95 percent fail.
This is largely due to brands not understanding their customers' needs deeply enough, not positioning the product with the right customer set, or differentiation that gets lost on the customer.
Creating the best possible product, at the right time, for the right market is the prime way to improve product launch success for any type of business, be they small or large. But, understanding what needs to be done to create a financially successful product can be a difficult and overwhelming process, as there are so many variables that should be taken into account.
This article will break down 5 key ways to improve product development; easing the minds of business owners that are looking to break free from the statistics of product launch.
Get product insights From Your Target Market
The key to success in the world of business is satisfying a specific consumer base while making a reasonable profit. At the end of the day, everything leads to the customer: the ideas, the concepts, the planning, and the execution - except for the technology, but the technology must satisfy a real problem; most all great products match great technology with a great marketing approach. Both the technology and the marketing must be aligned with the product that will eventually be sold to the target market.
The consumer’s opinions and enjoyment of the product, or service, are the external ways to determine if a product is successful or not. Financial metrics characterize the profit to the company. You need both to be successful. Testing the waters with a minimum viable product (MVP) with the target market before launch can help product developers learn where the product is hitting those needs, and what its exact shortcomings are, in order for the next iteration to be closer to the mark..
Involving the customer at an early phase establishes a level of trust and certainty that the business cares about making the customers happy first and foremost. Feedback and customer review are some of the greatest ways to improve.
Hiring a Product Development Consultant
Product development consultants lend a vital helping hand that can aid businesses to get new products out at a fast and successful rate by ensuring that you achieve product-market fit early in development. It can be difficult to manage product development without input from a third party that specializes in helping people both innovate and execute to delight customers.
By going with a product development consulting firm such as TCGen, business owners can ensure that sales forecasts are met, and the overall development process can be improved to generate innovative and unique products that can satisfy the target market and the environment they live in.
Copyright: TCGen
Support The Product After Launch
Once a product has been developed and it is out in the market, the work has only just begun. Product development is a long-term process, as there are always improvements that can be made to a product after customers have experienced it on their own.
Having a dedicated support and sales team that can push the product to different hands and that can answer questions and fix problems is crucial to ensuring a high-quality level of product development - why you might ask? Because they can provide the development team with feedback from the market so the next product in the roadmap sells even better. Feedback, if captured and digested properly from sales and support, can accelerate innovation and iteration.
Create an Innovation Center
The innovation process is one of the most important when it comes to product development, as this is where countless ideas are born, tested, refined and then proven. But an innovation center needs to be more than brainstorming sessions, war rooms, or just pinning up ideas on a board and going with the best and most creative one. It needs to be a center of excellence.
The innovation process should include a deep analysis of the marketplace and seeing which void can be filled depending on the industry of the business. A focus on the front end of innovation, the market/customer prior to the “solutioning” will help the team get a good idea of both the product and the environment in the product - before having a solution. Some great and innovative products don’t make it, and this is because innovation is done out of the context of the market. Also an Innovation Center, to be useful, requires dedicated human resources. True product innovation is not free.
Ensure Cross Functional Accountability
Businesses need to organize themselves by dedicating the right teams to perform the critical product development functions superbly for an effective and impactful product development process. Cross functional accountability is vital, every single member in a business counts and can aid in creating the best possible product.
By taking into account all of the different factors of the business, from marketing, engineering, quality, customer service, to sales, a business can ensure a product is optimal from every functional perspective. As such, it will be more likely to meet quality, performance, support, and financial goals.
Final Thoughts
Getting product development right is crucial for any type of business operating today. By following the steps mentioned above, businesses can ensure that they will have success which will lead to overall growth. Any type of business in any industry can benefit from a successful product development process.