Concept Development and Testing

Concept Development and Testing

In recent years, due to the rapid change in customer needs therefore reflecting in a shorter product life cycle, adopting a more efficient and flexible approach for Product Concept Development has become imperative for a product to succeed (Chen, Khoo & Yan, 2005). The Product Concept holds that consumers will favour products that offer the most quality, performance and innovative features. This process aims to identify a marketing strategy that focuses on making product decisions that will reflect the criteria consumers are searching for (Amstrong and Harker, 2009).

Ultimately, the purpose of product conceptualisation is to realise a products position in the market allowing it to release effectively. Customer involvement especially in the early stages of product conceptualisation, plays an important role for a successful product (Chen, & Khoo, Yan 2002). A design team starts with exploring a combination of customer needs, corporate objectives, product ideas and related technological capabilities; then concluding the process with a set of product definition (Chen, Khoo, & Yan, 2000). 

Customers form expectations of products along with their values and satisfaction produced from them. According to Lamb, Hair and McDaniel (2009), a concept test is ‘a test to evaluate a new product or service idea.' Concept tests allow the marketer to put the development idea forward to the consumer using a number or tests such as questionnaires and interviews allowing a collection of feedback to be developed in order to develop a finalised product idea to move forward with.

Examples in the industry

The FIFA Quality Concept is a testing programme used to develop footballs for outdoor use, Futsal and beach sport. Each football is FIFA approved and inspected, finally getting granted a quality mark after each ball has gone through rigorous testing procedures (FIFA). Concept tests are carried out under laboratory conditions ‘subjecting them to even tougher conditions than they will probably ever endure in a normal game.’ Each ball has to undergo tests checking: weight, circumference, roundness, bounce, water absorption and loss of pressure (FIFA). These are all concepts that consumers feel are vital in the quality of a football.

Lycra is another organisation that has carried out concept testing evaluating the needs and wants of consumers in-regards to sports fibre clothing whilst reviewing their demands and purchasing intentions. This has allowed Lycra to constantly produces new products that have been adapted accordingly (Lycra, 2008). 

Personal Product Example

Following the Idea Screening phase, the adaption of the 'Reelfit' golf shoes as performance trainers appeared to appeal to the largest target market as well having the greatest potential profit possibilities. The developers therefore will target consumers who participate in running, using numerous questions to find out if the product appeals to them, if they have any intention of purchasing the product  and if they feel it would benefit them in comparison to competitive products. This will allow the business to re-evaluate the product, identifying its target market as well as customising a market strategy for the further stages of product development.

+Paul Blakey 

Word count: 493 words

References

Chen, C. H., Khoo, L. P., & Yan, W. (2005). PDCS—a product definition and customisation system for product concept development. Expert Systems with Applications, 28(3), 591-602.

Harker, M., & Armstrong, G. M. (2009). Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education.

FIFA Quality Concept for Footballs: The Concept. Available at :http://footballs.fifa.com/Quality-Concept [Cited on: 25/11/2013]

Chen, C. -H., Khoo, L. P. & Yan, W (2000). An investigation to the elicitation of customer requirements using sorting techniques and fuzzy evaluation. Proceedings of the 6th Asia Pacific Management Conference (pp. 45–55), Tainan, Taiwan.

Lycra (2008). Lycra Sport Fabric. Available at: http://www.lycra.com/g_en/webpage.aspx?id=963. [Cited on: 27/11/2013.]

Idea Screening

Idea Screening

Following on from the Idea Generation phase, an organisation may be left with hundreds of successful, newly developed products and services (Toubia and Florès, 2007).  The Idea Screening Process is therefore seen to be one of the most prominent elements to the product development phase, playing an important role in innovation success. At this stage, a management team evaluates new products and service ideas, developed on from the idea generation phase, undergoing processes that involve high levels of uncertainty and ambiguity, making a ‘first go or no go’ decision based upon certain levels of criteria chosen by the team (Hammedi, Van Reil and Sasovova, 2011).

Limited available resources make it difficult to develop several products at the same time, and a successful idea screening process contributes to a more focused product development process, with a higher possibility of success (Candice Consulting, 2013).

Examples of Idea Screening

Nike are continuously developing and re-evaluating their products to produce high quality sports wear. Their aim in this phase is to produce a ‘refined standard for innovation and sustainability – a standard we use to assess our products’ (Nike Inc., 2012). In order for their product goal to become successful, Nike have successfully ‘developed a predictive tool to quantify, in real time, the environmental impacts of each choice a designer makes’ (Nike Inc., 2012). Nike therefore uses Idea Screening to eliminate unwanted products, successfully producing only environmentally friendly and sustainable products.

Another example of this is Galvin Green, where Idea Screening is continuously used to develop the latest waterproof clothing specifically made for Golf, using this process to create a 'full range of high-tech garments, designed to match and function in combination [...] specifically developed for the game of golf. Designed by golfers, for golfers' (Galvin Green, 2013). This allows the developed products to be innovative, therefore showing why this company is a leading Golf manufacturer.

The Process Itself

The following Decision Making Matrix (Figure 1) presents the evaluation of three product ideas, marked against 6 criteria. This method uses numeric techniques to help decision makers choose among a discrete set of alternative decisions and its success is based upon the utility of the decision makers involved (Triantaphyllou, 2000).The Matrix can be seen as bias as although it is carried out with a customer focus, it is the decision makers final choice of which score each product is granted.




Figure. 1

This specific matrix presents Product 1 to be marked relatively low in comparison to the other products due to alternatives being available in the market and the high level of risk involved in creating the product that could lead to low profit once developed. Product 2 and Product 3 ranked similarly against all criteria as the both presented to have a gap in the market along with a high potential profit gain. However, the product that will be taken forward into the next process stage is Product 3 due to the prominent gap in the market for this design of shoe.

Word Count: 499

References

Toubia, O., & Florès, L. (2007). Adaptive idea screening using consumers. Marketing Science, 26(3), 342-360.

Hammedi, W., Van Riel, A. C., & Sasovova, Z. (2011). Antecedents and Consequences of Reflexivity in New Product Idea Screening. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 28(5), 662-679.

Candice Consulting. 4.3 Idea Screening (2013). Available at: http://www.slmsc-project.eu/en/?page_id=2142 [Accessed: 18/11/2013]


Triantaphyllou, E. (2000). Multi-criteria decision making methods (pp. 5-21). Springer US.

Nike Inc. Designing Product: Shrinking the footprint of our products (2012). Available at: http://nikeinc.com/pages/products. [Accessed: 19/11/2013]

Nike Inc. Strategy: A New Model and Shift to a Sustainable Business and Innovation (2012). Available at: http://www.nikebiz.com/crreport/content/strategy/2-1-4-a-new-model-and-shift-to-sustainable-business-and-innovation.php?cat=cr-strategy. [Accessed on: 19/11/2013]




Galvin Green. Multi-Layer Concept (2013). Available at:  http://www.galvingreen.com/2013/multi_layer_concept.html. [Acessed on: 19/11/2013]

+Paul Blakey