Stage 6 - Product Development

Stage 6

Product Development

The sixth stage of the new product development process is the product development stage. It is defined by Tzokas, Hultink and Hart (2004) as ‘the design and manufacturing of several prototypes’, however, in the Business Dictionary (2015) it is further described as the ‘modification of an existing product or its presentation, or formulation of an entirely new product that satisfies a newly defined customer want or market niche’. Therefore, it is bringing the idea you have had in the other stages to life and into a physical form such as prototypes of the product and developing the brand you will be using.  Having these physical representations of the product will further allow you to gather feedback on the product. With this information it will allow the organisation to make adjustments to the product depending on the reaction of the market to the prototype. Different mediums can be used to develop and advertise the prototypes, such as short promotional videos and posters, to best get the message of the product across to the target market.

An example of the product development process is the England Cricket Board’s new under 19 Twenty 20 competition. The aim of the competition was ‘keeping U19 players in club cricket’ (ECB, 2014). They came up with the idea and they created four prototype competitions in different areas to test how well this new competition will work. Therefore, these four competitions are the prototype product and they can receive feedback from these four competitions and the clubs that competed in it, to see what worked well and what can be improved when the new competition is run across the country.  They have also created the brand to run alongside the professional T20 competition, the NatWest T20 Blast, which will ensure the competition is well advertised and that people are aware of it. These prototype competitions have been used to create a promotional video for the new competition to advertise it at the target market. 

As discussed in the earlier blogs, the concept being worked through the new product development process is a relay F1 format. As discussed, we will be using cars previously used in the Formula One season therefore no prototype of cars can be made. However, the way to test the event will be to run a small race at the British Grand Prix and this means we will have the spectators there watching and will allow feedback to be gathered. With this information decisions will be made on how to improve the format before moving on to fully running the event and a season. The concept will be branded by the name of R1 Racing (Logo in Appendix A), this will mean that people will still associate the format to Formula One and will attract the supporters of that format to watch this new one. However, the use of exciting words will try to appeal to new fans and feedback can be gathered and adjustments can be made if this does not work.

Appendices

Appendix A – The R1 Racing Logo

Reference List

• Business Dictionary (2015) Product Development. Available at: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/product-development.html (Accessed: 19^th January 2015).
• ECB (2014) NatWest U19 Club T20. Available at: http://www.ecb.co.uk/news/non-first-class/natwest-u19-club-t20 (Accessed: 19^th January 2015).
• Tzokas, N., Hultink, E. & Hart, S. (2004) ‘Navigating the new product development process’, Industrial Marketing Management, 33 (2004), pg. 619 – 626.