Stage 2 - Idea Screening

The New Product Development Process

Stage 2 – Idea Screening

The Second Stage of the New Product Development Process is Idea Screening. It is described by Scott Edgett (1999, pg.510) as ‘the initial go/no go decision where it was first decided to allocate funds to the proposed new product idea’. Therefore this shows that in this stage, you analyse the product or new sport format to decide whether it is a viable in both the short term and long term. You will try to assess the impact it will have on the current market and to assess if an investment in the product will show a return. Christopher Easingwood (1986, pg.273) indicates that ‘The new product concept would normally be evaluated by customer discussion groups’. This shows that it is important to go out and test the market to see how well your new concept would be taken to by the target market of the concept. You would also have to approach potential sponsors and investors to see if they would be interested in your new concept. At this stage you will also have to investigate how well a new concept of a sport would fit into the market at the minute as well because if the sport is already successful a new concept of the sport may not be appreciated. 

    

An example of idea screening in action is the way the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) analysed how Twenty 20 cricket would affect the market. They discovered that two thirds of the population either hated cricket or had no interest in watching it. However, they discovered that over half of the survey approved the idea of the shorter format and Martin Williamson (2012) says the 34% of the people that approved the format had never attended a match. Therefore, the ECB spotted a new market they could exploit and Twenty 20 cricket has been a huge success.  

In the last blog, two new concepts of sports were discussed briefly and now in this blog we have analysed the two new concepts of golf and Formula One. To find out which idea would be best to pursue further through the new product development process and decision matrix was constructed and analysed against five options which were: entertainment value, the investment needed, chance of a participation boost, how popular the sport already is and how long the event would last.  When both concepts were analysed it was decided that the concept of a relay F1 event would be the best to pursue. In figure 1, we can see that it was believed that the F1 relay would be more entertaining because it would be a quicker format than already exists. However, it was also decided that the golf league had the best chance to increase participation due to golf being more accessible. The deciding factor though was how long the event would last and with the F1 relay being a short format there would be a bigger chance of people taking to the concept and watching it.  

Figure 1 – A Decision Matrix

Weight	5	8	4	3	1	21
	24%	38%	19%	14%	5%	100%
Option	Entertainment Value	Investment Needed in Project	Chance of a Participation Boost in the Sport	Popularity of the Sport	How long the event would last	Score
Golf league	50	30	20	75	25	39
Relay F1	85	25	10	50	70	42

Reference List

•  Easingwood, C, J. (1986) ‘New Product Development for Service Companies’, Journal of Product Innovation Management, 3(4), pg. 264-275. 
• Edgett, S, J. (1996) ‘The New Product Development Process for Commercial Financial Services’, Industrial Marketing Management, 25(6), pg. 507-515.   
• Williamson, M. (2012) ‘Crash, bang and Pandora's Box is opened - The day the game of cricket was changed forever’, ESPN Cric info. [Online] Available at: http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/579245.html (Accessed: 18^th November 2014) 

Idea Generation

Idea Generation

Idea Generation is the first stage in the eight stage New Product Development process. This process is vital within the sporting industry because of its ever changing nature and consumers are always demanding a new experience. Consumers may want a new innovation of an already established sport or just a completely new sport for them to enjoy. Established sports may have to create new interest due to declining numbers watching and participating, therefore sports governing bodies invest huge amounts of time and money into coming up with new bright ideas to reinvigorate the sport. The use of areas such as research and development can help show what the consumer wants most and how sports can provide this. Beech and Chadwick (2013) state that the idea ‘stage may well be the most critical stage’; this justifies the time and effort put into researching and coming up with new variations to attract attention within the sport.

Examples of where the idea generation stage has been a success is in T20 cricket. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) had to come up with a new idea to reinvigorate the game due to reduced spectators and a lack of sponsorship. The idea was create a shorter and fast-moving new format to encourage younger people to come and watch the cricket again after being put off by the prolonged formats of the game. This made the game much more attractive for people and families to come and watch, therefore appealing to a wider audience. The first T20 game took place in 2003 and has since become a worldwide revelation. Leagues have been founded throughout the world from cricket-mad India to Canada. To see the success of this new format you only have to look at the Indian Premier League (IPL) and The Big Bash in Australia which both attract huge crowds and sponsorship from multi-national corporations such as KFC who sponsor the Big Bash. This new format has been very successful and has brought a huge amount of interest back to cricket.

Other sports are also investigating new ideas. A new format of golf is being thought of to get a larger interest in the game away from the four majors and the Ryder Cup. This new format will create a number of franchises around the world and auction off the world’s best players and then they will play in a league format. This will create interest in golf throughout the year and will give spectators a team to support and watch throughout the season in which the league would run.

Another idea is an F1 relay format where you could have different makes of car such as F1, GP 2 and other forms of racing cars all together in one event. Teams would have a choice of which car went at certain parts of the race and what driver raced when so it would be exciting new format.

Reference List

·         Beech, J. and Chadwick, S. (2013) The Business of Sport Management. 2^nd Edition. Harlow: Pearson

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