Right Process, Right Product
According to a survey of product developers, the main reason products fail to meet the market needs is due to poor product definition. Companies are all about what it has to offer instead of consumer’s needs and wants. Companies should make the right product decisions before beginning the product development process. For example, Sony developed the Beta videotape format based on picture quality. Profits might have taken a different turn if Sony had done some research on what the consumers wanted which were longer recording hours on videotape.
An approach that some companies have initiated into their product development life cycle is based on design goals and product definition decisions from data collected from a select set of users or customers. Some companies that use this customer focused or market-driven methodology uses a cross-functional team of product developers within an organization to do the research for data collections, processing and analysis. A cross-functional product design team consists of representatives from engineering, marketing, operations, manufacturing and finance. The data shows what the customers likes and dislikes in product or services, records usage patterns, indicates future needs, and leads the way to additional innovative solutions.
A market-driven process helps the cross-functional team to reach its objectives by following these four steps: (1) gather customer information, (2) process customer visit data, (3) analyze customer requirements, and (4) generate solutions. (Step 1) Gather customer information refers to one-on-one in-depth interviews with current customers, lost accounts, competitor’s customers and non-customers. (Step 2) ...