Product Development Process and Product Discriminators
This paper outlines the new product development (NPD) process as applied to a new electronic product, walking through six of the eight standard stages: concept development and testing, marketing strategy development, business analysis, product development, test marketing, and commercialization. It explains why idea generation and idea screening are bypassed given a pre-selected product idea, and details how each remaining stage contributes to cost control, consumer insight, and successful market entry. The paper also examines two key product discriminators—price and design—discussing how companies leverage these attributes to differentiate their offerings in competitive markets such as televisions and mobile phones.
- Introduction to the Product Development Process: Overview of the eight-step NPD framework
- Concept Development, Testing, and Marketing Strategy: Creating and evaluating product concepts for market fit
- Business Analysis and Product Development: Sales forecasting, cost estimation, and prototyping
- Test Marketing and Commercialization: Real-market testing and final product launch strategy
- Product Discriminators: Price and Design: Using price and design to differentiate products
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What makes this paper effective
- Clearly applies a well-established eight-step NPD framework to a concrete scenario (a new electronic product), making abstract theory immediately practical.
- Transparently acknowledges which stages are skipped and why, demonstrating critical thinking rather than mechanical step-by-step recitation.
- Connects the NPD discussion to product discriminators, providing a coherent bridge between product creation and market positioning.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper models applied framework analysis: it takes a standard theoretical model (the eight-step NPD process) and adapts it to a specific business context, justifying selective use of stages rather than treating the framework as a rigid checklist. This approach—selecting, modifying, and explaining the framework—is a hallmark of applied business writing at the undergraduate level.
Structure breakdown
The paper is divided into two clearly labeled sections. The first, "Product Development Process," moves chronologically through the NPD stages, devoting roughly equal attention to each active step. The second, "Product Discriminators," shifts focus to market differentiation, using price and design as parallel examples supported by industry illustrations (luxury brands, mobile phones). References follow APA format and ground the discussion in peer-reviewed and edited scholarly sources.
Introduction to the Product Development Process
For a new product to be successful in the market, one must ensure that it has undergone a structured product development process. This process takes a product through a series of stages that begin with ideation and end with the introduction of the product to the market. These stages are aimed at understanding consumers, markets, and competitors in order to ensure that the product will deliver superior value to its intended customers. The product development process is a cycle through which an idea is converted into a viable good or service.
In the case of a new electronic product, the idea should undergo the eight steps of the product development process: idea generation, idea screening, concept development and testing, marketing strategy development, business analysis, product development, test marketing, and commercialization (Gopalakrishnan, Libby, Samuels, & Swenson, 2015). This phased approach ensures that schedule, resources, and costs remain under control.
Idea generation is the first step and involves a systematic search for product ideas. However, since the product to be launched has already been determined, this step can be bypassed. Idea screening—which involves filtering ideas to select the most promising one—will also be omitted, as the product idea has already been chosen and requires only market justification. The product development process will therefore begin with concept development and testing.
Concept Development, Testing, and Marketing Strategy
Concept development is the creation of a detailed version of the new product idea. A product concept uses consumer-oriented language to distinguish itself from a raw idea and typically includes visual representations of the proposed product. A well-developed concept must be precise enough for readers to fully understand and mentally visualize what is being described. For the new electronic product, at least three distinct concepts should be developed so that the most attractive option for target customers can be identified.
Concept testing involves presenting these concepts to target customers, either physically or symbolically, to determine whether a particular concept has strong consumer appeal. Because it is not feasible to present a physical electronic product at this stage, graphics and detailed descriptions would be used to represent each concept and gather customer feedback.
Having identified a promising concept, the next step is developing the marketing strategy for the new product. According to Golder and Mitra (2018), the marketing strategy will consist of a description of the target market, planned value proposition, sales and market share goals, and profit objectives. This stage also involves formulating the product's planned price, its distribution channels, and the overall marketing budget.
References
Golder, P. N., & Mitra, D. (2018). New product development research: Consolidating the present and guiding the future. In Handbook of Research on New Product Development. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Gopalakrishnan, M., Libby, T., Samuels, J. A., & Swenson, D. (2015). The effect of cost goal specificity and new product development process on cost reduction performance. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 42, 1–11.
Grudin, J. (2017). Obstacles to participatory design in large product development organizations. In Participatory Design (pp. 99–119). CRC Press.
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