This course covers how companies can identify some significant existing or latent user needs.

We will cover how to use this understanding to develop new products or services to meet those needs.

We will cover innovation and technology-led new products.

We will also cover adapting existing products to new users.

We will also cover the adaptation of business models to new contexts.

We will use both the product-centric as well as the user-centric viewpoints.

Product development involves making many critical trade-offs in features to match the latent customer requirements and the competitive offers.

Most product characteristics and key features are decided at the early product development stages, these may prefix their market scope.

Changing such product characteristics later to meet new demands or correct any mistakes is often expensive, sometimes unviable, or sometimes just not feasible.

Decisions taken at the early stages can have major strategic and operational impact on the success of new products when launched.

Bad decisions at early stages can restrict the range of customers that may find the new product suitable.

The role of product developers is therefore critical in meeting 2 major targets.

1 is the product is both suitable and viable to users and 2, the time to reach the market is as less as possible.

First look at the cost of late design changes.

As you can see in this diagram, if a design change is made At the design stage, let's say it costs $10 to make that change, the same design change when made at the process design stage will cost $100, 10 times more.

The same design change made at the production stage will cost a thousand, maybe 100 times more.

So the effort involved is much higher at a later design stage and the cost involved is much higher but the change that is being made is just the same if it was made earlier.

So therefore, understanding customer requirements and building a correct design right at the early stage is actually very critical in reducing the time it takes to reach the product into the market, as well as to reduce the cost of making the product.

Look at the time that it takes to develop a new product.

A lot of work has happened in this industry, in this context, in this field to reduce the time taken to develop new products.

So most of the major improvements happened between the 80s and the 90s.

As you can see in this chart, Honda used to take 5 years to develop a new car in the 80s and they were able to reduce the time to 3 years in the 1990s and it's much lower currently.

AT&T took 2 years to develop a telephone exchange and it went down to 1 year in the 1990s.

Look at Hewlett Packard, they used to take 4 and a half years to make a new printer in the early stages.

Now they make printers in 2.2 months, a much faster process.

Obviously the printers are not radically different from 1 to the other, but there are new products being launched by Hewlett Packard almost on a monthly basis because of this faster time to market.

If you have a new technology and you are fast to build that product and bring it into the market, the new technology is incorporated into the latest product at a much faster pace than the other companies and that gives you


Speaker 0: This course covers how companies can identify some significant existing or latent user needs. We will cover how to use this understanding to develop new products or services to meet those needs. We will cover innovation and technology-led new products. We will also cover adapting existing products to new users. We will also cover the adaptation of business models to new contexts.

We will use both the product-centric as well as the user-centric viewpoints. Product development involves making many critical trade-offs in features to match the latent customer requirements and the competitive offers. Most product characteristics and key features are decided at the early product development stages, these may prefix their market scope. Changing such product characteristics later to meet new demands or correct any mistakes is often expensive, sometimes unviable, or sometimes just not feasible. Decisions taken at the early stages can have major strategic and operational impact on the success of new products when launched.

Bad decisions at early stages can restrict the range of customers that may find the new product suitable. The role of product developers is therefore critical in meeting 2 major targets. 1 is the product is both suitable and viable to users and 2, the time to reach the market is as less as possible. We look at both of these. First look at the cost of late design changes.

As you can see in this diagram, if a design change is made At the design stage, let's say it costs $10 to make that change, the same design change when made at the process design stage will cost $100, 10 times more. The same design change made at the production stage will cost a thousand, maybe 100 times more. The change remains the same. So the effort involved is much higher at a later design stage and the cost involved is much higher but the change that is being made is just the same if it was made earlier. So therefore, understanding customer requirements and building a correct design right at the early stage is actually very critical in reducing the time it takes to reach the product into the market, as well as to reduce the cost of making the product.

Look at the time that it takes to develop a new product. A lot of work has happened in this industry, in this context, in this field to reduce the time taken to develop new products. So most of the major improvements happened between the 80s and the 90s. As you can see in this chart, Honda used to take 5 years to develop a new car in the 80s and they were able to reduce the time to 3 years in the 1990s and it's much lower currently. AT&T took 2 years to develop a telephone exchange and it went down to 1 year in the 1990s.

Look at Hewlett Packard, they used to take 4 and a half years to make a new printer in the early stages. Now they make printers in 2.2 months, a much faster process. Obviously the printers are not radically different from 1 to the other, but there are new products being launched by Hewlett Packard almost on a monthly basis because of this faster time to market. So what does this mean for companies? If you have a new technology and you are fast to build that product and bring it into the market, the new technology is incorporated into the latest product at a much faster pace than the other companies and that gives you

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Week 1-Why Study New Product Development