New Product Development Report: Stockholm Gases' Innovation

This report delves into the new product development process undertaken by Stockholm Gases, a gas supplying company, focusing on the potential introduction of a teeth whitening product utilizing plasma technology. The report provides an overview of the organization, its approach to innovation, and the role of product managers in driving the development. It explores various stages of product development, including ideation, feature selection, and commercialization, while also examining open and closed innovation models and their application in this context. Furthermore, the report justifies the selected innovation model, addresses cost and risk minimization, and offers recommendations for a faster R&D process. The assignment analyzes the development of the product with focus on product manager's role, strategy, ideation, product features, and stages of development. It also focuses on the open and closed innovation models and their justification for the organization.

Running head: New product development
Innovation for new product development
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author notes

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Organizational overview............................................................................................................3
Stockholm Gases’ approach of innovation................................................................................4
Role of product manager in developing new product................................................................5
Strategy..................................................................................................................................6
Release of the product............................................................................................................6
Ideation...................................................................................................................................7
Deciding features of the product............................................................................................7
Stages of development of a new product...............................................................................8
Generating..........................................................................................................................8
Screening the product idea.................................................................................................8
Business analytics..............................................................................................................9
Beta or marketability testing..............................................................................................9
Product development with higher technicality...................................................................9
Commercializing the product...........................................................................................10
Perfect pricing and post launch review............................................................................10
Open and close innovation for the organization......................................................................10
Closed innovation.................................................................................................................10
Open innovation...................................................................................................................11
Transformational innovation............................................................................................12
Justification of selected innovation model...........................................................................14

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Sharing and minimizing the cost and R&D risks.............................................................15
Making faster R&D process.............................................................................................15
Leveraging the instruments..............................................................................................15
Recommendations....................................................................................................................16
Conclusion................................................................................................................................16
References................................................................................................................................18

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Introduction
The main idea that lies behind developing a new product is to open an entire new
market: It has the potential capacity of replacing the current product completely or take over
the existing product, or even broadening the market for a particular that exists already
(Marion et al. 2015). In some cases existing products are also reintroduced into new markets
by repackaging it, or marketing it in a different style. Introducing new products also can
enhance the resource used in a company, improve customer and distributor relationship of an
organization, launch the company into a new market and defends as well as increases the
market share of can organization (Gopalakrishnan et al. 2015). As a whole, the process of
developing a new product can be explained by the set of activities that takes a particular
product or service from a conception to market. Rebranded or new products and services
generally are meant to fill the consumer demand and create higher opportunity for the
company in the marketplace (Chwastyk and Kołosowski 2014). There are several steps in
developing a product such as drafting concept, design creation, developing the particular
service or product, and defining its marketing strategies. Generally, the new products differ
from the product line extension, and these are the products slightly different from the existing
array of offerings (Ahmad, Mallick and Schroeder 2013). This report is going to discuss
about the new teeth whitening product in to the market, in context of the Stockholm Gases.
The open and close model of innovation of the product is also going to be discussed in the
market.
Organizational overview
The Sweden based Stockholm industries is basically a gas supplying organization that
provides liquid oxygen to the health care industry and carbon dioxide to the beverage
industry. Over past 80 years, the particular industry is maintaining its market position

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successfully in the market. More than 32000 number of employees are working for this
organization in approximately 70 countries. Recently, the company is deciding to invest
about 10 % of its budget in introducing a new product to the teeth whitening market
(Refstockholm.com. 2019). The main intention of doing this us to enhance the profitability
and increasing its market presence. Below, a brief discussion is given with the suggestion that
whether the company has to invest the decided fund in introducing the new product or not.
Stockholm Gases’ approach of innovation
The main motive behind introducing new product into the market is to improve the
market presence and gain higher profit, thus creating higher competitive advantages. The
discussed organization is a gas supplying industry and supplies several different gases to
many industry for serving individual purpose. Among several projects, the R&D found that
the plasma project to be useful. Initially, plasma was identified as a cleaning agent and this is
nothing but an ionized gas that has capabilities of containing electricity and absorbing all the
energy from the electrical supply. The temperature of a gas is said to be increased while it
absorbs the electricity and the ions in it starts vibrating faster, thus resulting in scrubbing the
surface. However, the University of Southern California found that plasma can also use as a
teeth whitening object. Therefore, the researcher and scientific team research about the truth
of this concept and finding out whether it can be used as a business opportunity or not. A
meeting was conducted regarding the effectiveness and implementation of this product. The
R&D project leader Michael Glass was provided a promising result and the product was
tested on a pig’s teeth. Magical result from that experiment was found, resulting in creating
noticeable changes into the pig’s teeth and converting all the yellow teeth into white.
From the above undertaken approach, a clear idea gathered that the experimental
product can create higher opportunity in the market and creating major competitive

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advantages for the organization. The managers of this organization who were involved in the
product development process created several strategies and proposed several statistics
regarding the introduction of the new product. The recent age teeth whitening products are
not only aiming at curing the tooth decay, rather these are also focusing at ensuring fresh
breath, fighting with the gum bleeding and other gum related problem and whitening the
teeth. Existence of a series of competitors in this field somehow created challenges in the
initial decision making stage, however, it was also decided in the meeting that while it comes
to the licensing technology, the product can gain market attention and competitive advantages
in the market. The plasma technology used in the product will be able to gather higher
revenue for the company. In addition, licencing it with other existing companies can resulted
into successful end product, this on other hand can save the company form facing an
additional cost and gather increasing revenue for it.
Role of product manager in developing new product
While the organization decide to launch or develop a new product, the management
team of the organization plays a vital role (Felekoglu, Maier and Moultrie 2013). Especially,
the pressure and responsibilities are on the product managers associated with the
organization. Mainly, the Product managers of the organization are responsible for making
several strategies and guiding the success of the particular product (Yeniyurt, Henke and
Yalcinkaya 2014). In addition, leading a cross-functional team for undertaking the necessary
actions for developing the decided product is also another vital role and responsibilities of the
product manager. Setting the strategy, making roadmaps and featuring necessary definition
for creating suitable product line are important organizational role of the product manager.
The additional responsibilities also comes in terms of forecasting, marketing as well as
calculating the overall profit and loss of the company due to the new product (Malins et al.
2014). Product managers mainly gives a deep product expertise that is required for leading an

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organization and making several strategic product decisions (Frank and Ribeiro 2014). They
often experiment about the current market condition and the existing competition in the
market. Then they make a clear layout of the product, which has unique and differentiate
value depending on the demands of the customers. The particular role spans several activities
from the strategic to tactical. Moreover, it also gives essential view to the importance of the
cross-functional leadership. In a simpler format, it can be said that the product managers are
the ones for defining the “what”, “when” and “why” of a particular product and service
(Midgley 2014). Below, there are certain factors that the product managers of Stockholm
industry are recently focusing on for driving the introduction of the new teeth whitening
product having plasma technique towards success.
Strategy
It is the major responsibility of a product manager to set the mission, vision and
define necessary strategy for the product. A clear articulation of the business value and
improvement of the brand name is their main job. So, it is necessary for them to understand
every single component behind the new product (Li et al. 2013). The product manager
associated with the organization also owns the roadmap of the product and must prioritize the
identification of what matters the most for achieving the strategic goals along with the
initiatives behind the particular product.
Release of the product
It is necessary for the product manager to plan what their team is going to deliver and
what will be the exact timeline for implementation of the plan and delivery of new product
regardless of the methodology used (Stark 2015). Another additional responsibility of the
product manager is to define the release process of the teeth whitening product and
coordinating all the necessary activities to introduce the product into the market. This mainly
involves bridging the existing gaps between several functions within the organization as well

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as aligning all the teams involved in the particular process (such as, sales, marketing, as well
as customer support). The responsibilities also involves managing the dependencies during
the releases so that the release phases can be completed and milestones can be achieved
(Wouters and Morales 2014).
Ideation
Obviously, every company needs improved and unique ideas for betterment but the
achievement of success depends on managing and prioritizing the ideas. It comes under the
potential capabilities of the product managers to undertake several creative process for
developing, generating, as well as curating new and unique ideas (Chesbrough 2017). They
also determine the most suitable ideas need to be promoted into the features of the product to
push the related strategy forward. These strategies manly focuses on achieving the key
objectives of the product line and the organization as a whole. At the end, it is the role of the
management team, to make sure that the requests and feedback are integrated seamlessly into
the planning as well as development processes of the product. The management team then
communicate the created status of tactics and ideas back to the partners, customers, and the
team members.
Deciding features of the product
The product features are prioritized by ranking the features against the actual strategic
goals and the initiatives. However, the main requirement in this case is making difficult
decisions regarding the trade-off depending on the value and service that new features is
going to deliver to the consumers along with the business of the particular company. The
product manager along with the entire managing team also responsible for clearly explaining
the requirements for every feature and the necessary user experience (Saebi and Foss 2015).

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As building a great product and introducing it into a new market is invigorating, the
management team of the discussed organization need to have clear idea about their role and
responsibilities. In addition to that, it can be said that, successful products are built as well as
adopted efficiently by the customers when the management and development team of the
organization is highly focused, passionate and committed regarding the assigned work.
Stages of development of a new product
Below, there are some important product development stages, to which the product
managers need to put more focus for developing more prominent teeth whitening products by
taking the plasma technique.
Generating
Utilizing basic external and internal SWOT analysis of the product and the business
the managers need to make further decision making activities. Along with conducting the
SWOT analysis, they also need to research about the current market (that is existing
competition, acceptability of the customers). This phase also allows performing activities like
checking the affordability of the organization to acquire resource for the new teeth whitening
product, and the total cost related to the distribution process. The roadmap for the product
also developed in this stage.
Screening the product idea
After gathering all the knowledge regarding the internal capabilities of the
organization and the external opportunities and challenges regarding the product
development, it is now essential for the project managers to create strategies for gathering
higher success by introducing the product into the market. As the teeth whitening product is
going to adopt plasma technique, therefore, the management team of the selected
organization need to involve dental scientists in the planning phase so that better ideas can be

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gathered. The product planning need to be made by focusing on the strategies adopted by the
competitors and current trends of the market.
Business analytics
During the process of developing a new Product, it is necessary for the business to
build a system of metrics so that it can monitor the overall progress. The set of metrics
usually include different type of input metrics, for example, measurement of the average time
in every stage, along with an output metrics for measuring the value of the product that is
launched, and the percentage selling along with other valuable figures for collecting efficient
feedback regarding the product. It is essential for the organization have proper agreement or
documentations for these metrics and criteria.
Beta or marketability testing
Another essential stage in the product development is to perform the marketability
testing. It mainly requires a proper arrangement of the private tests groups, launching of a
beta versions, after that building a test panels. The main intention behind undertaking
marketability of testing of the product is to collect valuable information regarding the
acceptance and long term existence of the product so that any last minute change can be
possible if needed.
Product development with higher technicality
Stockholm is going to develop a teeth whitening product, therefore, it is essential for
the organization to prioritize higher quality of the product to satisfy the health concerns. Each
component of the product need to be tested carefully by the researchers and the scientists
before adding it into the development process. The product also need to uphold some extra
features such as, avoiding the bad breath, fighting with the gum problem and many such. In
this stage, it is an essential responsibility of the product manager and the whole development

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team to ensure that the product development process is progressing according to the pre-
defined plan and strategies.
Commercializing the product
Commercializing of the product simply explain undertaking suitable promotional
activity of making the product reach to the customers. Colgate, Procter &Gamble are already
established companies in this field. Therefore, the discussed company needs to strategize
essential promotional activities so that the product information can reach to the customers.
Posting advertisements in the TV, newspapers and designing posters can be effective. In
addition, undertaking public campaigns can also turn out to be beneficial in acknowledging
the customers regarding the particular product.
Perfect pricing and post launch review
With severe market competition, it is necessary for the selected organization to adopt
successful pricing strategy so that it can attract the customers. In initial stage, the low pricing
strategy can be beneficial for the company. Offering the new product in a lower price than the
competitors, yet keeping the company profit in front can be advantageous.
Open and close innovation for the organization
Closed innovation
The process of closed innovation is typically based on the thought
that innovations are developed only by the organization itself. Starting
from generating suitable ideas to the process of developing and
marketing, this type of innovation exclusively takes place inside the
company. Hence, opening towards the outside is not possible. Innovations
therefore are developed only within the defined boundaries of the
company (West et al. 2014). The, processes, intellectual properties as well as

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the resources stays under control of the company. In this process a large
sums is invested in the internal research and development (R&D). This
R&D department gives a transparent and effective way of innovation. As
the end result, this process of innovation is characterized with the fixed
boundaries of the company and the internal R&D activities (Marques 2014).
If the technologies used in the organization are linked very closely, in this
case closed innovation is most appropriate as the open innovation can
carry some risks. In addition, the closed innovations are generally preferable while the
innovation produces any fundamental technological enhancement, which intended to provide
the firm a noticeable advantage over all the existing competitors. In many industries, where
intensive competition exists, closed innovation is considered to be more suitable for
exploiting higher advantages for the organization itself.
Open innovation
The process of Open innovation can be explained by opening up the company’s
innovation process beyond its boundaries. The main motive of doing this is to increase one's
own potential of innovation by using several different active strategies (Chesbrough and
Bogers 2014). Therefore, it can be said that this type of innovation can arise through by
analysing and interacting the external and internal ideas, processes, technologies as well as
several sales channels. In this case the company aims at developing several innovative ideas,
services, products and even new business models. Open innovation can be explained as the
efficient use of the inflows as well as outflows of different knowledge for internally
accelerating the entire innovation process (Cheng and Huizingh 2014). This also allows
expanding the existing markets for external utilization of the innovation. This innovation
model includes managed and strategic exchanges of important information with several
factors outside the boundaries of a company, and focuses at integrating the organizational