New Product Development

The phrase "new product development" refers to the whole process of creating, developing, marketing, and servicing a new product, whether a product product like an automobile or a service like serving meals to home-bound seniors.

Product products and service products can be treated the same from an NPD perspective. They're both products.

New products include completely new products or variations on existing products, but a variation on an existing product needs to be treated like a brand new product when managing its development and marketing. More and more it's getting harder and harder to think up a brand new product. Things are changing so fast products are more often than not variations on a theme.

Developing products is not like it used to be. In the past, company A developed a product and sold it to customers B. Now a product is a cooperative venture of the company A and customers B. The dividing line between producer and consumer has been all blown to bits. If you're smart, you'll invite the users of your products to help you redesign them. They might actually have ideas for you you had thought of and they might act as your marketing agents. The walls of Jericho have come tumbling down.

A lot of companies don't understand this. They think it's the same old same old. Not true and it will be less true going forward. The people who see this will be far ahead.

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