Consumers' needs are not static, they keep on changing. As such, companies must continuously keep on developing new products and services to ensure they meet the evolving customers’ needs. As commented by Jang et al., (2019) to survive in the current world, businesses must continuously innovate and invest in new products and services to create more value for customers. Otherwise, failure to continuously develop new products that create new values for customers can be the beginning of the end for the company. A case in point is Nokia, a once leading phone manufacturer that slipped from market leadership to almost bottom of the market. Nokia failed to innovate new products which meant it failed to create new value for customers. As a result, customers shifted to Nokia’s competitors who were continuously creating new value for them (Remco, 2017). Therefore, new product and service development is critical for the survival of a firm. It is needed to ensure firms continuously meet the evolving needs of customers, continuously create new value for customers hence be able to retain them as well as gain new ones and be able to defend itself against competitors (Kim et al., 2016). As demonstrated in theory, developing a new product or service is not done in an ad hoc. It a process which start with opportunity identification, idea generation and screening, concept testing, sales forecasting, product design, product use testing, public launch and commercialization (Bhuiyan, 2011, Bhuiyan, 2011; Kazimierska & GrÄbosz-Krawczyk, 2017). In this paper, evidence will be corrected from real world business case scenarios in an attempt to understand whether the product development in the real world follows the new product development process as discussed in theory.
Opportunity identification and idea generation
According to the existing theory/ literature, identification of opportunities is the first process in product development is identification of market opportunity and then generation of potential ideas (Bhuiyan, 2011; Kazimierska & GrÄbosz-Krawczyk, 2017). Kazimierska & GrÄbosz-Krawczyk (2017), note that new product development start as a result of identifying a market opportunity such as unfulfilled customers’ needs, an exploited market niche, etc. Similar sentiments are also shared by Armstrong (2019), who argues that company do not just invest in product development blindly. There must exist a market conditions that must have triggered the new product development processes. Existing literature have identifying a lot of marketing opportunity or condition that can trigger the new product development process. According to Armstrong (2019) new product development process can be trigger by unfulfilled customer needs, unexploited market niche, unused resources, change in leadership , technological advancement among others.
The new product development in real world seems to support the claim made in literature that idea generation is as a result of identification of market need. a good case in point is tesla and moderna. Tesla will go in history as the first motor company to focus fully on electric cars for the mass market. It development new product i.e. cars that were fully electrical for the mass market. As noted in their report wesite, tesla idea to develop new electric cars were informed by unmet need. i.e. the need for car that did not emit carbon dioxides and hence causing less environmental impacts (Tesla, 2021). It was also informed by the unmet market need for electrical cars that would performs as well as combustion engine based cars. It is as result of such unmet need that (Tesla, 2021). Similarly, moderna a drug manufacturer, begin the new product development process after identifying a market opportunity following the outbreak of covid-19. When the outbreak of covid-19 was recorded across the globe, there was dire need to have a medicine that would treat people infected with it or at least protect people from it. Moderna, in response to this market opportunity began the process of developing a new vaccine drug for the covid-19 (Moderna, 2019). The new product which is known as moderna Covid-19 vaccine with code name mRNA-1273 has already been fully developed and launched to the market.
Idea and concept generation
According to the existing literature/theory, the second stage in product development is the concept generation (Shalabi & Bach, 2016; Armstrong, 2019). Once idea is generated and screen for it quality, concept development is then done. This stage involves coming up with a verbal or prototype statement of the news product and the value it will create for customers (Armstrong, 2019). Concept development can be market driven or market driving. A market driven concept develop is one that seek to solve a customer’s problems that has been identified (Armstrong, 2019). On the other hand, market driving is developing a cutting edge technology and then applying it to solve customers’ problem (Armstrong, 2019). For instance, recently, coca cola retired it coke zero products and instead developed product known as ‘new coke no sugar’. The development of this product concept was market driven rather than market driving. When making statement about the new product, the coca cola Australia marketing director, Kate Miller that the new product was developed as a result of continued growth in appetitive for no sugar options (Coca cola Australia, 2021). This is a clear indication that the new coke no sugar concept development was guided by the desired to solve the market needs. On the other hand, Samsung, on august 11 release a new smartphone in the market known as Samsung galaxy Z Fold 3. This new product was not market driven but a market driving product. The company first developed or acquired cutting edge technology such as optical image stabilization (IOS), armor aluminum frame, AI face recognition among others among others and then leverage on the technology to create a new product i.e. Samsung galaxy Z fold 3, to solve customer problem. So, while developing it concept for the new product i.e. new coke, no sugar, coke followed the sequence of need –form-technology. On the other hand, while developing the concept for it Samsung galaxy Z fold 3 concept, Samsung first developed the technology, form and use the same to solve customer problem. It thus followed the technology-form and- Need sequences in it concept development.