Challenges of New Product Development Process

This article discusses the challenges faced in the new product development process. It covers the stages of idea generation, idea screening, concept development and testing, business strategy analysis and development, product development, test marketing, and commercialization. The challenges include market size, customer choices, technical difficulties, legal and regulatory issues, and promotional expenses.

New product development Process
Challenges of new product
development process
Student Name

Introduction
New product development for the organisation is actually a voyage. It that path,
which leads the real product and that definite product is to be tested first and then being
marketed. For all this, every new product formation has to go through numerous stages before
introducing them into the market (Fu, Jiang, & Cao, 2013).
(Source: Claessens, 2015).
Idea Generation:
The leading and the foremost stage of product development is an idea generation.
Ideas are the thoughts, which can come from anywhere, can be formed. This stage carries
large pool of ideas, which can be in source of SWOT analysis, through market research, by
the customers, through competition and lastly the internal sources. This step is important for

companies to know more about the current market trends and their solutions, understanding
customers’ needs and behavior lastly, identifying areas of opportunities.
Challenges: In this, market size, market potential and lastly the customers’ choices affects
the formation of an idea, which is itself a challenge for the developer for choosing the market
segment for a launch.
Idea Screening:
Concepts can be as many, but few of them are relevant and feasible. Others are
discarded which are not suitable according to the trends. This step is important because a set
criteria is decided against which each idea is evaluated. In this, from the selected ideas little
of deviations are considered where no extra time is spent in debating unsuitable ideas. Here,
ideas are selected according to companies’ strength weaknesses, affordability and customers’
needs ongoing trends.
Challenges: Here a challenge, which a developer faces, is selecting one idea out of many, as
every customers needs are different from one another. The best suitability according to
customers’ needs and companies accessibility.
Concept development and testing:
The third stage of product development highlights concept expansion and testing. This
concept is the blueprint version of the selected idea. This concept is formed presentable and
brought into the target market. Some of the selected target group are chosen for the concept
testing. This step is vital because it helps in identifying the target market, purchase decision
makers, customers’ reactions and lastly, design details and their technical requirements,
which helps in making the desired product.
Challenges: In this, technical challenges are faced by the developer, which may not know
what the next development is, might be. For firm it might create a pathway for using that
technology that may be soon obsolete can be a major challenge.
Business strategy analysis and development:
In this stage, business comes up with the concluding concept, which is to be developed into a
final product. Now, business decides their marketing, branding strategies along with this
estimating product profitability; marketing mix, other strategies are considered. This step is

important to estimate a close reality, workup sales volumes, profitability and lastly,
breakeven are identified.
Challenges: In this, product developer faces challenges like he/ she has to perform that kind
of product that are according to needs, choices of customers, set strategies the market
analysis.
Product development:
In this step, once the strategies are approved, they concept which was earlier decided
is now formed into the final real product. In this development stage, new product
development outcomes in constructing up the prototypes. This step is important because
company has to face the real feedbacks those are generated and helps in identifying redundant
features. In this, on small scale for the target group, launches are done in order to access
acceptance (Dubiel, Banerjee, Ernst, & Subramaniam, 2018).
Challenges: In this, product developer faces challenges like he/ she has to perform that kind
of product that are innovate, need positive attitude towards innovation and creating new
choices from hidden aspects.
Test marketing:
Unlike to concept testing, in test marketing prototypes are introduced are feedbacks
are taken into considerations and accordingly the further changes are made to the product.
This procedure is of utmost important as it helps in validating the entire concept and make
company ready for the final launch of the particular product in the market (Claessens, 2015).
Challenges: In this, legal and regulatory along with the distribution challenges are to be
faced by the developer. In which they have to see whether product formation is according to
the laws and regulations.
Commercialization:
The word itself tells that now the product and its marketing strategies are ready. Final
decisions are out for launching of the product in the market. In this, there are many stages
involved for performing duties and targets of different departments. Every minor and major
decision related to the product launch in new product development are taken into
considerations. Hence, this step is important to know that how the ultimate customers’ reacts

while using and getting feedbacks to know more about the customers’ perception about the
new product launch (La Rocca, Moscatelli, Perna, & Snehota, 2016).
Challenges: promotional challenge, which are considerably expenses for the product
developer at initial stage (Inertia, 2018).
Summary and Conclusion
From the above process, we can conclude that new product development formation
requires more of technical, promotional, legal, distribution and socially aware as these are the
main challenges which a developer faces right from the starting his career.
References
Claessens, M. (2015). The new product development process. Retrieved from:
https://marketing-insider.eu/new-product-development-process/
Dubiel, A., Banerjee, S., Ernst, H., & Subramaniam, M. (2018). International-market-
information use across new-product-development stages. International Marketing
Review, 35(5), 760-784.
Fu, L., Jiang, P. & Cao, W. (2013). Modelling and performance analysis of product
development process network. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 36(6),
1489-1502.
Inertia. (2018). Why your product development is stuck (and how to get it unstuck). Retrieved
from: https://inertiaengineering.com/7-challenges-facing-product-development-
managers/
La Rocca, A., Moscatelli, P., Perna, A., & Snehota. (2016). Customer involvement in new
product development in B2B: The role of sales. Industrial Marketing Management,
58, 45-57.