Product Development Research

Product Details

In a competitive world, no company can survive without product development. As soon as you release a new or improved product or service onto the market, your competitors are ready and waiting to emulate it and improve it for their own purposes.

Product development does not have to be revolutionary. Indeed, most products evolve continuously over time; product development must be regarded as a continuous process, not an occasional event.

Whether you are seeking to make your existing offering evolve, or whether you are looking for a completely new offering to appeal to the market, the views of your customers and potential customers are crucial. We caution, however, against simply asking customers what they want – this approach will not always lead to success. Often target markets are extremely bad at saying what they want, usually because they don’t know! The key to successful product development research lies in exploring what the market values. Our job as researchers, marketers and product developers is to convert these issues into a package of benefits that appeals to the market.

It is worth highlighting that product development research is not just about the product per se. As we imply above, we must consider the whole package of benefits that will appeal to the market. This package will include product, but also the pricing strategy, the packaging, the associated services, and the promotional messages.