research topics on new product development

• Browse All Articles
• Newsletter Sign-Up

ProductDevelopment →

No results found in working knowledge.

• Were any results found in one of the other content buckets on the left?
• Try removing some search filters.
• Use different search filters.

How To Do Market Research For New Product Development

Market research for new product development can be overwhelming.

It’s easy to get lost in a mountain of market reports with thousands of data points…. yet get no clear insights on which product is best for your brand.

Instead of aimlessly searching for new product ideas and sifting through endless market reports, this post will walk you through a simple step-by-step process that outlines:

• How to quickly find relevant new product ideas.
• Specific data and metrics you need to analyze each product opportunity (and how to find these metrics).
• How to use market research data to assess a product opportunity.

What Is Market Research For New Product Development?

Market research for new product development is the process of evaluating the demand, growth, and gaps in a market for a particular product (typically a physical product sold in a retail setting or direct to consumer).

These insights help you understand which products your target market wants, which ones are most profitable, and the key characteristics customers like and dislike about competitors' products.

With this data, you can more accurately predict which product will perform best for your business.

Types Of Market Research For New Product Development

There are four types of market research typically used for researching and developing products: 

• Qualitative research
• Quantitative research
• Primary research
• Secondary research

Quantitative Research

Examples of quantitative data you might collect during the product market research process include:

• Market size and growth rates
• Pricing data
• Sales forecasts
• Website traffic data
• Market share of the top competitors

Quantitative data is helpful for benchmarking and is often the main type of research used to quickly gauge the potential of market opportunities.

Quantitative data can be fact-checked, but accuracy still varies depending on factors like sample size and data collection methods.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is data based on subjective opinions.

An example of qualitative data is customer feedback.

This data is helpful for product market research, as you can better understand customer pain points and what they like and dislike about what's already out there.

Some examples of qualitative research methods include:

• Interviews with potential customers
• Customer reviews
• Questionnaires and surveys
• Discussion analysis (monitoring conversations on social media, in forums, etc.)
• Feedback from focus groups

Primary Research

Primary research is data collected by you or your company.

Here are some examples of primary research:

• Results from a survey you conducted
• A report from sales data your team analyzed
• Customer interviews conducted by your team

The advantage of primary market research is that it's proprietary data your company owns. So your competitors won't have access to it. You can also tailor the data to answer your specific questions about the market.

The downside of primary research is that it’s expensive and time-consuming. You'll have to conduct the research, clean the data, and analyze it yourself.

You can hire a market research firm to help, but this will make it even more costly.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is data collected and published by other third-party sources, like an industry publication or government agency.

Here are some examples of secondary research:

• Free and paid market reports published by a source like Grand View Research or MarketResearch.com .
• Statistics published by a source like The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics or the U.S. Energy Information Administration .
• Data in the Census Business Builder .

Secondary research is usually cheaper than primary research, so it's great for the early stages of product market research when you're narrowing down your list of product ideas.

For example, if you're interested in the padel market, search "padel market forecast" to find free industry reports. You can look at statistics like compounding annual growth rate and market size to quickly gauge if the padel market is worth exploring in more detail.

The drawback of secondary research is that the data quality may vary as you can't control data quality.

So research how each provider collects and cleans the data they publish.

Step By Step Process To Conduct Market Research For Product Development

​​In this step-by-step market research process for new product development, you'll learn how to find, validate, and develop a great product.

Step 1: Research And Identify Trending Products

Many people browse social media and Amazon to find trending product ideas.

But emerging products, by definition, aren't easy to find.

You might spend hours browsing these platforms to find a few promising product ideas. And even the most diligent product researchers might still overlook the best emerging product ideas.

One solution to find great product ideas faster is to use a product research tool.

However, each tool contains different product ideas.

So the tool you choose significantly impacts the product ideas you find.

For example, many product research tools only show products that have grown significantly in the past few weeks. These are often fads, and demand may die out when you’re ready to launch your product.

Other product research tools show you products that are currently trending. Yet this isn't helpful if you want to launch a product before demand peaks.

Or, the product research tool might simply overlook the best product ideas. This is common with product research tools relying on human analysts to find product ideas, as even the best analysts may overlook a great product idea.

To solve these problems, we built our own product research tool, Exploding Topics.

It has a unique trend identification and qualification method that uses AI and ML to scan millions of data points across sources like YouTube, Amazon, Spotify, Google Search, and Reddit. This ensures it consistently spots emerging product ideas. Then, we use Google Search volume data to ensure the topic has a steady compounding growth trajectory.

This process allows Exploding Topics to consistently identify emerging products with long-term growth potential.

It's also easy to use.

When you open the Trending Products dashboard, you'll see a list of trending products. You can filter the database by category (fitness, fashion, beauty, gaming, pets, etc.), BSR, monthly sales, price, revenue, and reviews.

The graph next to the product information also represents the keyword's Google Search volume trend so that you can gauge its growth trajectory:

When you see a product that interests you, click on it for more details, like a forecast of its growth trend for the coming year.

Further down the product page is a list of the Top Sellers for that product on Amazon.

You’ll also see related trending products and topics. You can also click on any of those products for more detailed information.

To track a product, click "Track Topic" and add it to a Project.

Projects are folders that live inside the Trend Tracking dashboard, and Exploding Topics updates each topic's growth trend in real time.

This makes it easy to gauge product growth at a glance so that you never have to worry about managing a product idea spreadsheet.

You can try Exploding Topics Pro for $1 to start researching product ideas.

Step 2: Analyze The Market For Each Product Idea

Your product is much more likely to succeed if it’s part of a growing market.

An easy way to quickly analyze a market’s general growth trajectory is to look at a market forecast.

Sources like Grand View Research , Globe Newswire , and Market.us usually offer free market reports with forecast data.

To find these reports, Google the product keyword and "market report:"

Next, identify the brands with the largest market share and analyze their growth trajectory.

If the market leaders are growing rapidly, the market is probably also expanding.

There are two ways to easily gauge a brand's growth.

1. Check the brand’s Google Search volume trend .

You can find a brand's Google Search volume trend by typing the brand name into Google Trends or the Trends Search feature in Exploding Topics.

You can also click "Track Topic" and add it to a Project to monitor growth.

2. Employee headcount

A company is probably growing if it has steadily increased employee headcount over the past few years.

You can find employee headcount data by typing the brand name into LinkedIn and scrolling down to the bottom of the company page:

Funding data is also a great indicator of a market's growth trajectory.

Investors spend a lot of time and resources assessing market growth, so a lot of funding activity is a good sign the market is growing.

Paid tools like CB Insights and Pitchbook offer detailed funding data for most industries. You can also search "funding" and the industry name to find press releases, funding reports, and other relevant investment news.

Step 3: Conduct Customer Research

Once you find a trending product in a growing market, the next step is figuring out how to create the best product possible.

First, identify what customers like and dislike about existing products. Then, create a product that incorporates the elements customers like about existing products and solves the pain points they experience.

The easiest way to conduct customer research is to analyze customer reviews.

Amazon is the best resource to find verified reviews. As you're reading through the reviews, make notes on:

• Target Audience Demographics : Who is buying the product? (gender, age, location, etc.).
• Use Case : What problem did they purchase the product to solve?
• Praise : What do they like about the product?
• Pain Points : What do they like about the product?

For example, from the review below, you can tell that customers value soft material, accurate color descriptions, and expensive aesthetics. You can also see that customers want a more durable product.

Reading through reviews can help you better understand your target customers, but most people don't have time to read thousands of customer reviews.

So you can also copy and paste customer reviews into ChatGPT and ask it to extract insights on audience demographics, product use cases, likes, and dislikes.

Here's a prompt you can use to analyze the reviews. (In this screenshot, all of the reviews are pasted in quotes following the prompt):

Here’s a snippet of the response it generated:

You can also find Reddit or Facebook groups of your target audience.

For example, if you're considering selling infant vitamins, you could join these Facebook groups for moms:

After joining the group, you can ask members about the product you're researching. Here are some specific questions you can ask:

• Why did they purchase the product?
• How did they select the brand they purchased from?
• What do they like/dislike about the product?

You can also ask respondents if they would consider getting on a quick call. One-on-one interviews let you ask more follow-up questions to better understand the audience.

Talking to prospects is also a great way to build up some demand for your product and even recruit a group of beta testers.

If you already have an audience, ask them about your new product idea.

For example, this creator asked her TikTok followers what they thought of her sleepwear product idea.

Then, she documented the product development process and gathered feedback from her followers to craft a product they want.

For example, after designing a few concepts with the manufacturer, she created another video of the initial product designs and asked her audience for feedback.

Her product launch went on to be a major success and she sold out in a matter of hours.

Step 4: Pre-Sell Your Product And Gather Initial Feedback

The best way to validate market demand for your product concept is to see if people will buy it.

So design a few product samples and then run a pre-order sale.

If nobody buys the product, you'll avoid wasting thousands of dollars developing tens or hundreds of products that nobody wants.

And if your pre-order sale is successful, you can use that revenue to fund product development.

For example, Nebia ran a pre-order sale for its bidets to validate the product concept.

There are a few different ways you can generate pre-orders.

If you already have an audience, you can create a social media post or email your list and announce the pre-order sale.

This post is a great example of a pre-order sale video. The influencer explains how the product works, its benefits, and how it solves common pain points.

If you don't have an audience, you can work with an influencer to create a pre-order video for you.

You can also run Facebook or Instagram ads to a landing page to generate pre-orders. Facebook has a step-by-step guide explaining how to set up and run ads for pre-order sales.

Another option is to run a pre-order sale on Kickstarter.

Nebia is a great example of an ecommerce brand that validated its product idea on Kickstarter.

The Kickstarter community will also give you initial feedback on the product before you launch it to the public. Kickstarter users also know they're beta testers, so they tend to be more forgiving if the initial product concept isn't perfect.

You can also ask some Kickstarter buyers to record video reviews of the product for your public product launch.

Step 5: Launch Your New Product And Gather Feedback

After launching your product, gather feedback from your audience to continue iterating on the original product.

If you have a social media following, you can ask your audience what they like and dislike about the product.

You can also email your list offering a discount or coupon to complete a product survey.

Survey tools like Pollfish and SurveyMonkey make it easy to create and send a product survey.

In the survey, ask specific questions about the product. For example, if you’re selling athletic clothing, you could ask them to rate the product fit, material quality, durability, style, color, and other specific factors.

If you leave the questions too open ended, people will give you generic feedback that might not be very helpful for improving the product.

Start The New Product Market Research Process Today

A solid product market research process takes the guesswork out of product launches by giving you the data you need to identify and design the best product for your audience.

It will also give you more confidence on launch day, as you'll have solid evidence of strong demand for your product.

To get started with the first step of the product market research process, use Exploding Topics to browse thousands of emerging trending products today.

Find Thousands of Trending Topics With Our Platform

• Data, AI, & Machine Learning
• Managing Technology
• Social Responsibility
• Workplace, Teams, & Culture
• AI & Machine Learning
• Diversity & Inclusion
• Big ideas Research Projects
• Artificial Intelligence and Business Strategy
• Responsible AI
• Future of the Workforce
• Future of Leadership
• All Research Projects
• AI in Action
• Most Popular
• The Truth Behind the Nursing Crisis
• Work/23: The Big Shift
• Coaching for the Future-Forward Leader
• Measuring Culture

The spring 2024 issue’s special report looks at how to take advantage of market opportunities in the digital space, and provides advice on building culture and friendships at work; maximizing the benefits of LLMs, corporate venture capital initiatives, and innovation contests; and scaling automation and digital health platform.

• Past Issues
• Upcoming Events
• Video Archive
• Me, Myself, and AI
• Three Big Points

New Product Development

Collaboration, solving real user problems with generative ai: slack’s jackie rocca.

On the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Jackie Rocca explains how Slack uses artificial intelligence to relieve user pain points.

Sam Ransbotham and Shervin Khodabandeh

Driving manufacturing efficiency with ai: pirelli’s daniele petecchi.

On the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Daniele Petecchi discusses how Pirelli uses AI to develop tires more efficiently.

Making Magic With Gen AI: Capital One’s Prem Natarajan

On the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Capital One’s Prem Natarajan explains AI’s role in enhancing the customer experience.

Digital Marketing

Micro utility with gen ai: shopify’s miqdad jaffer.

On the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Miqdad Jaffer explains how Shopify is using generative AI to empower entrepreneurs.

Sustainability

R&d leaders must play a key role in the journey to net zero.

Executives who lead research and innovation are well placed to help their companies cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Dan Edwards and Michael Zeitlyn

Entrepreneurial ai in the enterprise: lg nova’s shilpa prasad.

On the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, LG Nova entrepreneur in residence Shilpa Prasad discusses startups innovating with AI.

Fueling Interdisciplinary Innovation With AI: Volvo’s Anders Sjögren

On the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Volvo’s Anders Sjögren explains artificial intelligence’s use in car manufacturing.

AI & Machine Learning

Sound business: the promise of audio machine learning technologies.

Emerging machine learning technology could enhance sound creation and the detection and analysis of acoustic signals.

Innovation Strategy

Lego takes customers’ innovations further.

New research shows how companies can advance open innovation by integrating customers’ ideas into product development.

Michela Beretta, Linus Dahlander, Lars Frederiksen, and Arne Thomas

Images and inspiration with ai: pinterest’s jeremy king.

On the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Pinterest’s Jeremy King discusses the technology behind the image-based platform.

Skills & Learning

Learning from and with ai: duolingo’s zan gilani.

On the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Duolingo’s Zan Gilani shares how AI personalizes the language app and motivates users.

The Social Science of AI: Intel’s Elizabeth Anne Watkins

On the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, learn how social scientists help facilitate human-machine collaboration at Intel.

Technology Innovation Strategy

The incumbent’s deep tech strategy playbook.

The authors created a three-step framework aimed at helping leaders at incumbent companies identify and execute their deep-tech engagement strategies.

François Candelon, Vinit Patel, Max Männig, and John Paschkewitz

Mix creativity with the right mindset to serve up innovation.

Research finds fear of failure could keep an innovator from launching a new creative endeavor after an early success.

Dirk Deichmann and Markus Baer

The missing discipline behind failure to scale.

Many companies master new business ideation and incubation, but few follow a rigorous scaling path.

Andy Binns and Christine Griffin

Out of the lab and into a product: microsoft’s eric boyd.

On the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Microsoft’s Eric Boyd discusses Azure and democratizing artificial intelligence.

Helping Doctors Make Better Decisions With Data: UC Berkeley’s Ziad Obermeyer

UC Berkeley’s Ziad Obermeyer discusses how machine learning and AI are being used for medical research and diagnoses.

Level Up to Strategic Data Sharing

Based on their research, the authors share four key ways companies can advance their strategic data-sharing initiatives.

Barbara H. Wixom, Ina M. Sebastian, Robert W. Gregory, and Gabriele Piccoli

Why businesses need to embrace the bioeconomy.

Developing products using materials from biological sources can yield more sustainable business models.

Donna Marshall, Aideen O’Dochartaigh, Andrea Prothero, Orlagh Reynolds, and Enrico Secchi

Investing in the last mile: paypal’s khatereh khodavirdi.

Data science leader Khatereh Khodavirdi discusses how PayPal uses AI and machine learning for customer personalization.

To read this content please select one of the options below:

Please note you do not have access to teaching notes, recent trends in agile new product development: a systematic review and agenda for future research.

Benchmarking: An International Journal

ISSN : 1463-5771

Article publication date: 8 September 2022

Issue publication date: 1 December 2023

The market's intense competition, the unpredictability of customer demands and technological advancements are compelling organizations to adopt new approaches, such as agile new product development (ANPD), which enables the introduction of new products to the market in a short span. The existing ANPD literature review articles are lacking in portraying recent developments, potential fields of adoption and the significance of ANPD in organizational development. The primary goal of this article is to investigate emerging aspects, current trends and conduct a meta-analysis using a systematic review of 177 ANPD articles published in peer-reviewed journals between 1998 and 2020.

Design/methodology/approach

The articles were categorized based on their year of publication, publishers, journals, authors, countries, universities, most cited articles, etc. The authors attempted to identify top journals, authors, most cited articles, enablers, barriers, performance metrics, etc. in the ANPD domain through the presented study.

The major themes of research articles, gaps and future trends are identified to assist academicians and ANPD practitioners. This study will benefit ANPD professionals by providing them with information on available literature and current ANPD trends.

Originality/value

Through meta-analysis, this study is one of the unique attempt to categorize ANPD articles to identify research gaps and highlight future research trends. A distinguishing feature of the presented study is the identification of active journals, publishers and authors, as well as enablers, barriers and performance metrics.

• Agile new product development
• New product development
• Systematic literature review
• Meta-analysis
• Categorised review

Palsodkar, M. , Yadav, G. and Nagare, M.R. (2023), "Recent trends in agile new product development: a systematic review and agenda for future research", Benchmarking: An International Journal , Vol. 30 No. 9, pp. 3194-3224. https://doi.org/10.1108/BIJ-05-2021-0247

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited

Related articles

We’re listening — tell us what you think, something didn’t work….

Report bugs here

All feedback is valuable

Please share your general feedback

Join us on our journey

Platform update page.

Visit emeraldpublishing.com/platformupdate to discover the latest news and updates

Questions & More Information

Answers to the most commonly asked questions here

Innovation and New Products Research: A State-of-the-Art Review, Models for Managerial Decision Making, and Future Research Directions

• First Online: 14 July 2017

Cite this chapter

• Tingting Fan 6 ,
• Peter N. Golder 7 &
• Donald R. Lehmann 8  

Part of the book series: International Series in Operations Research & Management Science ((ISOR,volume 254))

5244 Accesses

5 Citations

This chapter has a three-fold purpose. First, we provide a literature review of major papers in the field of new products research. We organize our review into four tables, one for each of the four stages of the new product development process, and then by topic within each stage. We provide a short summary of each paper in the tables. Second, we highlight specific models within each stage of the new product development process. These models are useful for marketing researchers and managers tackling challenges in the new products domain. Third, after reviewing the literature, we suggest numerous general research directions as well as specific research questions to guide future investigations in this area.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

• Available as PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Compact, lightweight edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info
• Durable hardcover edition

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

The Journal of Product Innovation Management is also a valuable repository of new products research.

Aral, Sinan, and Dylan Walker. 2014. Tie strength, embeddedness, and social influence: A large-scale networked experiment. Management Science 60 (6): 1352–1370.

Article   Google Scholar  

Assmus, G. 1975. NEWPROD: The design and implementation of a new product model. Journal of Marketing 39 (1): 16–23.

Bass, Frank M. 1969. A new product growth model for consumer durables. Management Science 15 (5): 215–227.

Bayus, Barry L. 2013. Crowdsourcing new product ideas over time: An analysis of the Dell IdeaStorm community. Management Science 59 (1): 226–244.

Bemmaor, Albert C., and Nicolas Glady. 2012. Modeling purchasing behavior with sudden ‘Death’: A flexible customer lifetime model. Management Science 58 (5): 1012–1021.

Blackburn, J.D., and K.J. Clancy. 1980. LITMUS: A new product planning model. In Proceedings: Market measurement and analysis, ed. Robert P. Leone, 182–193. Providence, R.I.: The Institute of Management Sciences.

Google Scholar  

Blattberg, R., and J. Golanty. 1978. Tracker: An early test market forecasting and diagnostic model for new product planning. Journal of Marketing Research 15 (2): 192–202.

Biyalogorsky, E., W. Boulding, and R. Staelin. 2006. Stuck in the past: Why managers persist with new product failures. Journal of Marketing 10 (2): 108–121.

Bohlmann, Jonathan D, Peter N. Golder, and Debanjan Mitra. 2002. Deconstructing the pioneer’s advantage: Examining vintage effects and consumer valuations of quality and variety. Management Science 48 (9): 1175–1195.

Borah, Abhishek, and Gerard J. Tellis. 2014. Make, buy, or ally? choice of and payoff from announcements of alternate strategies for innovations. Marketing Science 33 (1): 114–133.

Boulding, W., and M. Christen. 2003. Sustainable pioneering advantage? Profit implications of market entry order. Marketing Science 22 (3): 371–392.

Boulding, William, and Markus Christen. 2008. Disentangling pioneering cost advantages and disadvantages. Marketing Science 27 (4): 699–716.

Boulding, W., R. Morgan, and R. Staelin. 1997. Pulling the plug to stop the new product drain. Journal of Marketing Research 34 (1): 164–176.

Bowman, D., and H. Gatignon. 1996. Order of entry as a moderator of the effect of the marketing mix on market share. Marketing Science 15 (3): 222–242.

Boyd, D., and J. Goldenberg. 2013. Inside the box . New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.

Bruce, Norris I., Natasha Zhang Foutz, and Ceren Kolsarici. 2012. Dynamic effectiveness of advertising and word of mouth in sequential distribution of new products. Journal of Marketing Research 49 (4): 469–486.

Burroughs, James E., Darren W. Dahl, C. Page Moreau, Amitava Chattopadhyay, and Gerald J. Gorn. 2011. Facilitating and rewarding creativity during new product development. Journal of Marketing 75 (4): 53–67.

Carpenter, G.S., R. Glazer, and K. Nakamoto. 1994. Meaningful brands from meaningless differentiation: The dependence on irrelevant attributes. Journal of Marketing Research 31 (3): 339–350.

Carpenter, G.S., and K. Nakamoto. 1990. Competitive strategies for late entry into a market with a dominant brand. Management Science 36 (10): 1268–1278. Focused Issue on the State of the Art in Theory and Method in Strategy Research.

Chandy, R.K., and G.J. Tellis. 1998. Organizing for radical product innovation: The overlooked role of willingness to cannibalize. Journal of Marketing Research 35 (4): 474–487.

Chen, Yubo, Qi Wang, and Jinhong Xie. 2011. Online social interactions: A natural experiment on word-of-mouth versus observational learning. Journal of Marketing Research 48 (2): 238–254.

Chevalier, J.A., and D. Mayzlin. 2006. The effect of word of mouth on sales: Online book reviews. Journal of Marketing Research 43 (3): 343–354.

Claycamp, H.J., and L.E. Liddy. 1969. Prediction of new product performance: An analytical approach. Journal of Marketing Research 6 (4): 414–420.

Cooper, L.G. 2000. Strategic marketing planning for radically new products. Journal of Marketing 64 (1): 1–16.

Cooper, R.G. 1990. Stage-gate systems: A new tool for managing new products. Business Horizons 33 (3): 44–54.

Cooper, R.G. 1994. Perspective third-generation new product processes. Journal of Product Innovation Management 11 (1): 3–14.

Coviello, Nicole E., and Richard M. Joseph. 2012. Creating major innovations with customers: Insights from small and young technology firms. Journal of Marketing 76 (6): 87–104.

Cui, Anna S., and Gina O’Connor. 2012. Alliance portfolio resource diversity and firm innovation. Journal of Marketing 76 (4): 24–43.

Dahan, E., A.J. Kim, A.W. Lo, T. Poggio, and N. Chan. 2011. Securities trading of concepts (STOC). Journal of Marketing Research 48 (3): 497–517.

Ding, M., and J. Eliashberg. 2002. Structuring the new product development pipeline. Management Science 48 (3): 343–363.

Dotzel, Thomas, Venkatesh Shankar, and Leonard L. Berry. 2013. Service innovativeness and firm value. Journal of Marketing Research 50 (2): 259–276.

Ederer, Florian, and Gustavo Manso. 2013. Is Pay for Performance Detrimental to Innovation? Management Science 59 (7): 1496–1513.

Ehrenberg, A.S.C. 1972. Repeat-buying: Theory and application . Amsterdam: North Holland Press.

Fader, P.S., B.G.S. Hardie, and K.L. Lee. 2005. Counting your customers the easy way: An alternative to the Pareto/NBD model. Marketing Science 24 (Spring): 275–284.

Fader, P.S., and D.C. Schmittlein. 1992. Excess behavioral loyalty for high-share brands: Deviations from the Dirichlet model for repeat purchasing. Journal of Marketing Research 30 (November): 478–493.

Fisher, J.C., and R.H. Pry. 1971. A simple substitution model of technological change. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 3: 75–88.

Fourt, L.A., and J.W. Woodlock. 1960. Early prediction of market success for new grocery products. Journal of Marketing 25 (2): 31–38.

Ganesan, S., A.J. Malter, and A. Rindfleisch. 2005. Does distance still matter? Geographic proximity and new product development. Journal of Marketing 69 (4): 44–60.

Gatignon, H., T.S. Robertson, and A.J. Fein. 1997. Incumbent defense strategies against new product entry. International Journal of Research in Marketing 14 (2): 163–176.

Gielens, Katrijn. 2012. New products: The antidote to private label growth? Journal of Marketing Research 49 (3): 408–423.

Godes, D., and D. Mayzlin. 2004. Using online conversations to study word-of-mouth communication. Marketing Science 23 (4): 545–560.

Goldenberg, Jacob, David Mazursky, and Sorin Solomon. 1999. Toward identifying the templates of new products: A channeled ideation approach. Journal of Marketing Research 36 (2): 200–210.

Goldenberg, J., R. Horowitz, A. Levav, and D. Mazursky. 2003. Finding your innovation sweet spot. Harvard Business Review 81 (3): 120–130.

Goldenberg, Jacob, Donald R. Lehmann, and David Mazursky. 2001. The idea itself and the circumstances of its emergence as predictors of new product success. Management Science 47 (1): 69–84.

Goldenberg, Jacob, Barak Libai, and Eitan Muller. 2002. Riding the saddle: How cross-market communications can create a major slump in sales. Journal of Marketing 66 (2): 1–16.

Golder, Peter N., and Debanjan Mitra (editors). 2017. Handbook of research on new product development . Edward Elgar.

Golder, Peter N., Rachel Shacham, and Debanjan Mitra. 2009. Innovations’ origins: When, by whom, and how are radical innovations developed? Marketing Science 28 (1): 166–179.

Golder, Peter N., and Gerard J. Tellis. 1993. Pioneer advantage: Marketing logic or marketing legend? Journal of Marketing Research 30 (May): 158–170.

Gopinath, Shyam, Pradeep K. Chintagunta, and Sriram Venkataraman. 2013. Blogs, advertising, and local-market movie box office performance. Management Science 59 (12): 2635–2654.

Gopinath, Shyam, Jacquelyn S. Thomas, and Lakshman Krishnamurthi. 2014. Investigating the relationship between the content of online word of mouth, advertising, and brand performance. Marketing Science 33 (2): 241–258.

Green, P.E., J.D. Carroll, and S.M. Goldberg. 1981. A general approach to product design optimization via conjoint analysis. Journal of Marketing 45 (Summer): 17–37.

Green, P.E., and V.R. Rao. 1971. Conjoint measurement for quantifying judgmental data. Journal of Marketing Research 8 (August): 355–363.

Green, P.E., and V. Srinivasan. 1978. Conjoint analysis in consumer research: Issues and outlook. Journal of Consumer Research 5 (2): 103–123.

Green, P.E., and V. Srinivasan. 1990. Conjoint analysis in marketing: New developments with implications for research and practice. Journal of Marketing 54 (4): 3–19.

Griffin, A. 1997. PDMA research on new product development practices: Updating trends and benchmarking best practices. Journal of Product Innovation Management 4 (6): 429–458.

Griffin, A., and J.R. Hauser. 1993. The voice of the customer. Marketing Science 12 (1): 1–27.

Gupta, Sunil, and Donald R. Lehmann. 2003. Customers as assets. Journal of Interactive Marketing 17 (1): 9–24.

Gupta, Sunil, Donald R. Lehmann, and Jennifer A. Stuart. 2004. Valuing Customers. Journal of Marketing Research 41 (1): 7–18.

Haenlein, Michael, and Barak Libai. 2013. Targeting revenue leaders for a new product. Journal of Marketing 77 (3): 65–80.

Hanssens, Dominique M. 2015. Empirical generalizations about marketing impact , 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: Marketing Science Institute.

Hauser, J.R., and D. Clausing. 1988. The house of quality. Harvard Business Review 66 (3): 63–73.

Hauser, John R., Guilherme Liberali, and Glen L. Urban. 2014. Website morphing 2.0: switching costs, partial exposure, random exit, and when to morph. Management Science 60 (6): 1594–1616.

Hauser, John R., and S.M. Shugan. 1983. Defensive marketing strategies. Marketing Science 2 (4): 319–360.

Hauser, John R., Gerard J. Tellis, and Abbie Griffin. 2006. Research on innovation: A review and agenda for marketing science. Marketing science 25 (6): 687–717.

Henard, D.H., and D.M. Szymanski. 2001. Why some new products are more successful than others. Journal of Marketing Research 38 (3): 362–375.

Hitsch, G.A. 2006. An empirical model of optimal dynamic product launch and exit under demand uncertainty. Marketing Science 25 (1): 25–50.

Hoeffler, Steve. 2003. Measuring preferences for really new products. Journal of Marketing Research 40 (4): 406–420.

Homburg, Christian, Martin Schwemmle, and Christina Kuehnl. 2015. New product design: Concept, measurement, and consequences. Journal of Marketing 79 (3): 41–56.

Horsky, D., and P. Nelson. 1992. New brand positioning and pricing in an oligopolistic market. Marketing Science 11 (2): 133.

Iyengar, Raghuram, Christophe Van den Bulte, and Thomas W. Valente. 2011. Opinion leadership and social contagion in new product diffusion. Marketing Science 30 (2): 195–21.

Jerath, Kinshuk, Peter S. Fader, and Bruce G.S. Hardie. 2011. New perspectives on customer ‘death’ using a generalization of the Pareto/NBD model. Marketing Science 30 (5): 866–880.

Johnson, R.M. 1974. Tradeoff analysis of consumer value. Journal of Marketing Research 11 (2): 121–127.

Johnson, R.M. 1987. Adaptive conjoint analysis. Paper presented at the Sawtooth Software Conference.

Kalyanaram, G., W.T. Robinson, and G.L. Urban. 1995. Order of market entry: Established empirical generalizations, emerging empirical generalizations, and future research. Marketing Science 14 (3 Supplement): G212–G221.

Kalyanaram, G., and G.L. Urban. 1992. Dynamic effects of the order of entry on market share, trial penetration, and repeat purchases for frequently purchased consumer goods. Marketing Science 11 (3): 235–250.

Kim, Hye-Jin, Young-Hoon Park, Eric T. Bradlow, and Min Ding. 2014. PIE: A holistic preference concept and measurement model. Journal of Marketing Research 51 (3): 335–351.

Kopalle, P., and D.R. Lehmann. 2006. Setting quality expectations when entering a market: What should the promise be? Marketing Science 25 (1): 8–24.

Kornish, Laura J., and Karl T. Ulrich. 2011. Opportunity spaces in innovation: Empirical analysis of large samples of ideas. Management Science 57 (1): 107–128.

Kornish, Laura J., and Karl T. Ulrich. 2014. The importance of the raw idea in innovation: Testing the sow’s ear hypothesis. Journal of Marketing 51 (1): 14–26.

Koukova, Nevena T., P.K. Kannan, and Amna Kirmani. 2012. Multiformat digital products: How design attributes interact with usage situations to determine choice. Journal of Marketing Research 49 (1): 100–114.

Kuehn, A.A. 1962. Consumer brand choice as a learning process. Journal of Advertising Research 2: 10–17.

Landwehr, R., Aparna A. Labroo, and Andreas Herrmann. 2011. Gut liking for the ordinary: Incorporating design fluency improves automobile sales forecasts. Marketing Science 30 (3): 416–429. http://pubsonline.informs.org/action/doSearch?text1=Landwehr%2C+J+R&field1=ContribJan .

Landwehr, Jan R., Daniel Wentzel, and Andreas Herrmann. 2013. Product design for the long run: Consumer responses to typical and atypical designs at different stages of exposure. Journal of Marketing 77 (5): 92–107.

Lehmann, Donald R., and Peter N. Golder. 2014. New products research. In The history of marketing science , ed. Russell S. Winer and Scott A. Neslin, now publishers.

Lilien, G.L., P.D. Morrison, K. Searls, M. Sonnack, and E.V. Hippel. 2002. Performance assessment of the lead user idea-generation process for new product development. Management Science 48 (8): 1042–1059.

Liu, Y. 2006. Word of mouth for movies: Its dynamics and impact on box office revenue. Journal of Marketing 70 (3): 74–89.

Liu, Qing, and Yihui Tang. 2015. Construction of heterogeneous conjoint choice designs: A new approach. Marketing Science 34 (3): 346–366.

Luce, D.R., and J.W. Turkey. 1964. Simultaneous conjoint measurement: A new type of fundamental measurement. Journal of Mathematical Psychology 1: 1–27.

Luo, L., P.K. Kannan, and B.T. Ratchford. 2007. New product development under channel acceptance. Marketing Science 26 (2): 149–163.

Luo, Lan, and Olivier Toubia. 2015. Improving online idea generation platforms and customizing the task structure on the basis of consumers’ domain-specific knowledge. Journal of Marketing (forthcoming).

Ma, Zhenfeng, Tripat Gill, and Ying Jiang. 2015. Core versus peripheral innovations: The effect of innovation locus on consumer adoption of new products. Journal of Marketing Research 52 (3): 309–324.

Mahajan, Vijay, Eitan Muller, and Frank M. Bass. 1995. Diffusion of new products: Empirical generalizations and managerial uses. Marketing Science 14 (3): G79–G88.

Massy, W.F. 1969. Forecasting the demand for new convenience products. Journal of Marketing Research 6 (4): 405–412.

McFadden, Daniel. 1974. Conditional logit analysis of qualitative choice behavior. In Frontiers in econometrics , ed. Zarembka, 105–42. New York: Academic Press.

Min, S., M.U. Kalwani, and W.T. Robinson. 2006. Market pioneer and early follower survival risks: A contingency analysis of really new versus incrementally new product-markets. Journal of Marketing 70 (1): 15–33.

Montoya-Weiss, M.M., and R. Calantone. 1994. Determinants of new product performance: A review and meta-analysis. Journal of Product Innovation Management 11 (5): 397–417.

Moorman, C., and A.S. Miner. 1997. The impact of organizational memory on new product performance and creativity. Journal of Marketing Research 34 (1): 91–106.

Narasimhan, C., and Z.J. Zhang. 2000. Market entry strategy under firm heterogeneity and asymmetric payoffs. Marketing Science 19 (4): 313–325.

Narayanan, Sridhar, and Puneet Manchanda. 2009. Heterogeneous learning and the targeting of marketing communication for new products. Marketing Science 28 (3): 424–441.

Netzer, O. and V. Srinivasan. 2011. Adaptive, self-explication of multiattribute preferences. Journal of Marketing Research 48 (1): 140–156.

Nowlis, S.M., and I. Simonson. 1996. The effect of new product features on brand choice. Journal of Marketing Research 33 (1): 36–46.

Ofek, E., and M. Sarvary. 2003. R&D, marketing and the success of next generation products. Marketing Science 22 (3): 355–370.

Parfitt, J.H., and B.J.K. Collins. 1968. Use of consumer panels for brand-share prediction. Journal of Marketing Research 5 (2): 131–145.

Peres, Renana, Eitan Muller, and Vijay Mahajan. 2010. Innovation diffusion and new product growth models: A critical review and research directions. International Journal of Research in Marketing 27 (2): 91–106.

Pringle, L.G., R.D. Wilson, and E.I. Brody. 1982. News: A decision-oriented model for new product analysis and forecasting. Marketing Science 1 (1): 1–29.

Rao, Vithala R. 2014. Conjoint analysis. In The history of marketing science , ed. Russell S. Winer and Scott A. Neslin. World Scientific - Now Publishers Series in Business.

Rao, V.R. 2008. Developments in conjoint analysis. In Handbook of marketing decision models , 1st ed, ed. Berend Wierenga, 23–53. New York: Springer Science+Business Media.

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Reinartz, Werner J., and Vita Kumar. 2003. The impact of customer relationship characteristics on profitable lifetime duration. Journal of Marketing 67 (1): 77–99.

Rindfleisch, A., and C. Moorman. 2001. The acquisition and utilization of information in new product alliances: A strength-of-ties perspective. Journal of Marketing 65 (2): 1–18.

Risselada, Hans, Peter C. Verhoef, and Tammo H.A. Bijmolt. 2014. Dynamic effects of social influence and direct marketing on the adoption of high-technology products. Journal of Marketing 78 (2): 52–68.

Roberts, John H., Charles J. Nelson, and Pamela D. Morrison. 2005. a prelaunch diffusion model for evaluating market defense strategies. Marketing Science 24 (1): 150–164.

Robinson, W.T. 1988. Marketing mix reactions to entry. Marketing Science 7 (4): 368–385.

Robinson, W.T., and C. Fornell. 1985. Sources of market pioneer advantages in consumer goods industries. Journal of Marketing Research 22 (3): 305–317.

Rogers, Everett M. 2003. Diffusion of innovation , 5th edn. Free Press.

Rubera, Gaia. 2015. Design innovativeness and product sales’ evolution. Marketing Science 34 (1): 98–115.

Rubera, Gais, and Ahmet H. Kirca. 2012. Firm innovativeness and its performance outcomes: A meta-analytic review and theoretical integration. Journal of Marketing 76 (3): 130–147.

Sándor, Zsolt, and Michel Wedel. 2002. Profile construction in experimental choice designs for mixed logit models. Marketing Science 21 (4): 455–475.

Sándor, Zsolt, and Michel Wedel. 2005. Heterogeneous conjoint choice designs. Journal of Marketing Research 42 (2): 210–218.

Schmittlein, David C., Donald G. Morrison, and Richard Colombo. 1987. Counting your customers: Who are they and what will they do next? Management Science 33 (1): 1–24.

Sethi, R., and Z. Iqbal. 2008. Stage-gate controls, learning failure, and adverse effect on novel new products. Journal of Marketing 72 (1): 118–134.

Sethi, Rajesh, Zafar Iqbal, and Anju Sethi. 2012. Developing new-to-the-firm products: The role of micropolitical strategies. Journal of Marketing 76 (2): 99–115.

Sethi, R., D.C. Smith, and C.W. Park. 2001. Cross-functional product development teams, creativity, and the innovativeness of new consumer products. Journal of Marketing Research 38 (1): 73–85.

Shanker, V., G.S. Carpenter, and L. Krishnamurthi. 1998. Late mover advantage: How innovative late entrants outsell pioneers. Journal of Marketing Research 35 (February): 54–70.

Shocker, A.D., and V. Srinivasan. 1974. A consumer-based methodology for the identification of new product ideas. Management Science 20 (6): 921–937.

Silk, A.J., and G.L. Urban. 1978. Pre-test-market forecasting of new packaged goods: A model and measurement methodology. Journal of Marketing Research 15 (2): 171–191.

Slotegraaf, Rebecca, and Kwaku Atuahene-Gima. 2011. Product development team stability and new product advantage: The role of decision-making processes. Journal of Marketing 75 (1): 96–108.

Sonnier, Garrett P., Leigh McAlister, and Oliver J. Rutz. 2011. A dynamic model of the effect of online communications on firm sales. Marketing Science 30 (4): 702–716.

Sood, Ashish, Gareth M. James, Gerard J. Tellis, and Ji Zhu. 2012. Predicting the path of technological innovation: SAW vs. Moore, Bass, Gompertz, and Kryder. Marketing Science 31 (6): 964–979.

Sood, A., and G.J. Tellis. 2005. Technological evolution and radical innovation. Journal of Marketing 69 (3): 152–168.

Spann, Martin, Marc Fischer, and Gerard J. Tellis. 2015. Skimming or penetration? Strategic dynamic pricing for new products. Marketing Science 34 (2): 235–249.

Stephen, Andrew T., Peter Pal Zubcsek, and Jacob Goldenberg. 2015. Lower connectivity is better: The effects of network structure on redundancy of ideas and customer innovativeness in interdependent ideation tasks. Journal of Marketing (forthcoming).

Sun, Monic. 2012. How does the variance of product ratings matter? Management Science 58 (4): 696–707.

Tang, Tanya, Eric Fang, and Feng Wang. 2014. Is neutral really neutral? The effects of neutral user-generated content on product sales. Journal of Marketing 78 (4): 41–58.

Toubia, Olivier, Jacob Goldenberg, and Rosanna Garcia. 2014. improving penetration forecasts using social interactions data. Management Science 60 (12): 3049–3066.

Toubia, Olivier, John R. Hauser, and Duncan I. Simester. 2004. Polyhedral methods for adaptive choice-based conjoint analysis. Journal of Marketing Research 41 (1): 116–131.

Toubia, O., D.I. Simester, J.R. Hauser, and E. Dahan. 2003. Fast polyhedral adaptive conjoint estimation. Marketing Science 22 (3): 273–303.

Tracey, Paul, Jan B. Heide, and Simon J. Bell. 2014. Bringing ‘Place’ back in: Regional clusters, project governance, and new product outcomes. Journal of Marketing 78 (6): 1–16.

Urban, G.L. 1970. SPRINTER MOD III: A model for the analysis of new frequently purchased consumer products. Operations Research 18 (5): 805–854.

Urban, G. L. 1975. PERCEPTOR: A model for product positioning, Management Science , 21 (8): Application Series, 858–871.

Urban, G.L., T. Carter, S. Gaskin, and Z. Mucha. 1986. Market share rewards to pioneering brands: An empirical analysis and strategic implications. Management Science 32 (June): 645–659.

Urban, G.L., and J.R. Hauser. 2004. “Listening In” to find and explore new combinations of customer needs. Journal of Marketing 68 (2): 72–87.

Urban, G.L., J.R. Hauser, W.J. Qualls, B.D. Weinberg, J.D. Bohlmann, and R.A. Chicos. 1997. Validation and lessons from the field: Applications of information acceleration. Journal of Marketing Research 34 (February): 143–153.

Urban, G.L., and E. Von Hippel. 1988. Lead user analysis for the development of new industrial products. Management Science 34 (5): 569–582.

Urban, G.L., and G.M. Katz. 1983. Pre-test-market models: Validation and managerial implications. Journal of Marketing Research 20 (3): 221–234.

Urban, G.L., B.D. Weinberg, and J.R. Hauser. 1996. Premarket forecasting of really new products. Journal of Marketing 60 (1): 47–60.

Van den Bulte, Christophe, and Yogesh V. Joshi. 2007. New product diffusion with influentials and imitators. Marketing Science 26 (3): 400–421.

Von Hippel, E. 1986. Lead users: A source of novel product concepts. Management Science 32 (7): 791–805.

Wang, Qi, Yubo Chen, and Jinhong Xie. 2010. Survival in markets with network effects: Product Compatibility and order-of-entry effects. Journal of Marketing 74 (4): 1–14.

Wies, Simone, and Christine Moorman. 2015. Going public: How stock market listing changes firm innovation behavior. Journal of Marketing Research (forthcoming).

Wind, Y. 1973. A new procedure for concept evaluation. Journal of Marketing 37 (4): 2–11.

Wind, J., P.E. Green, D. Shifflet, and M. Scarbrough. 1989. Courtyard by Marriott: Designing a hotel facility with consumer-based marketing models. Interfaces 19 (1): 25–47.

Wittink, D.R., and P. Cattin. 1989. Commercial use of conjoint analysis: An update. Journal of Marketing 53 (3): 91–96.

Wittink, D.R., M. Vriens, and W. Burhenne. 1994. Commercial use of conjoint analysis in Europe: Results and critical reflections. International Journal of Research in Marketing 11: 41–52.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

The Business School of Chinese University of Hong Kong, Sha Tin, Hong Kong

Tingting Fan

Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, Hanover, NH, USA

Peter N. Golder

Columbia Business School, New York, NY, USA

Donald R. Lehmann

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Peter N. Golder .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, South Holland, The Netherlands

Berend Wierenga

Department of Marketing, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Ralf van der Lans

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this chapter

Fan, T., Golder, P.N., Lehmann, D.R. (2017). Innovation and New Products Research: A State-of-the-Art Review, Models for Managerial Decision Making, and Future Research Directions. In: Wierenga, B., van der Lans, R. (eds) Handbook of Marketing Decision Models. International Series in Operations Research & Management Science, vol 254. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56941-3_3

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56941-3_3

Published : 14 July 2017

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-319-56939-0

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-56941-3

eBook Packages : Business and Management Business and Management (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

Top Marketing Research Articles Related to Product Development Research

Learn all about new product development research. Quirks.com is the largest source of marketing research information.

Search Results

More Filters

Loading filters...

Article How to conduct an effective concept test: The process, methods and benefits Josh White | April 3, 2024

Article In Case You Missed It...March/April 2024 Quirk's Staff | March 1, 2024

Article Discovering the real story: How virtual IHUTs offer deeper insights Krystal Rudyk | February 7, 2024

Article UX ResearchOps: Five ways to boost research efforts Paul Hagen | February 6, 2024

Article User experience research: The top trends and best practices Alida Staff | January 19, 2024

Article In Case You Missed It...January/February 2024 Quirk's Staff | January 1, 2024

Article Product discovery: What it is and best practices UserTesting Staff | January 16, 2024

Article How to conduct a win-loss analysis Nick Kane | December 22, 2023

Article Before You Go: 10 minutes with Marat Fleytlikh, Kraft Heinz Emily C. Koenig | November 1, 2023

Article Wilton Brands strategy for great insights and analytics teamwork Maddie Swenson | October 30, 2023

Article Usage and attitude studies: What are they and how to conduct them Chloe Cook | August 14, 2023

Article Bringing Spruce Cowffee to market Elliot Savitzky, Hannah Robbins | July 1, 2023

Sponsored Article 21 Top Taste Test/Sensory Research Companies Quirk's Staff | July 1, 2023

Article Using innovation testing to create a successful product David Whitelam | June 29, 2023

Article Consumer habits are changing. Are streaming platforms ready? John Conti | April 19, 2023

Join thousands of product people at Insight Out Conf on April 11. Register free.

Insights hub solutions

Analyze data

Uncover deep customer insights with fast, powerful features, store insights, curate and manage insights in one searchable platform, scale research, unlock the potential of customer insights at enterprise scale.

Featured reads

Inspiration

Three things to look forward to at Insight Out

Tips and tricks

Make magic with your customer data in Dovetail

Four ways Dovetail helps Product Managers master continuous product discovery

Events and videos

© Dovetail Research Pty. Ltd.

What is new product development?

Last updated

27 April 2023

Reviewed by

Our world is awash with products, and each one has a story.

Few products stem from one big eureka moment. Instead, companies created today's products after lots of research, analysis, and systematic testing to validate the idea and the demand.

As companies have a lot of competition, they must invest time and money into products that resonate with consumers and solve their problems. 

Companies must create new products that balance inspiration, design, planning, and production with a strategic business approach. 

NPD is different from regular product development as it involves creating and launching a new product and every step in between.

• What are the seven stages of new product development?

NPD has seven stages: 

Idea generation

Concept development, business analysis, product development.

Depending on the company, industry, or product, some stages may require a different approach and overlap.

As the name suggests, idea generation is the first stage for developing ideas for a new product.

Companies don't passively wait for ideas to occur to them. Instead, they brainstorm and research to uncover highly valuable problems they can potentially solve. 

Outside of research, you can use many brainstorming techniques , including:

Brainwriting

One team member writes a topic or idea on a sheet of paper and passes it to another team member. They write their thoughts or questions about the topic and pass the paper to the next team member, who does the same. The exercise concludes when all team members have added something to the paper.

Forced relationships

A facilitator brings up two different topics and challenges team members to map their relationships and similarities.

A facilitator asks a team to explain why something occurs. After soliciting answers, the facilitator asks why four more times to elicit more in-depth feedback.

Gap filling

A facilitator states a problem and a goal. They ask team members to work out the process to achieve the goal.

Group sketching

Team members take turns sketching ideas about a central concept on a single sheet of paper. Afterward, they discuss those ideas and the relationships between them.

Mind mapping

This method begins with a topic written in the center of a page. Team members take turns writing themes that radiate outward, like rays from the sun. 

Team members discuss the resulting image and the relationships, associations, and valuable ideas it generates.

Teams often need to try a few brainstorming exercises to identify a viable idea or two. 

Then, the team can transform the idea into a problem statement, clearly defining who the problem is for, their current problem, and how you will solve it.

The idea screening stage takes the initial idea and fleshes it out for the next step. The product development team also begins to evaluate it for feasibility. 

Often, they'll consider questions such as:

Is the idea unique, or is the market saturated?

Is there enough potential reward to take on the risks that come with this idea?

If other companies are solving the problem, how can we be different?

How might existing and prospective customers receive this product?

Sometimes, answering these questions is enough for teams to realize that an idea isn’t viable. Even if it is, this stage may illustrate where further research is needed to validate the idea. 

Additionally, teams may realize they need to be more innovative to improve the concept, so they may use more brainstorming techniques.

At this stage, NPD teams will float the idea to trusted stakeholders for initial feedback to refine the concept further. This feedback may help a team understand the concept's viability and whether it’s worth pursuing. 

At this stage, your idea enters the formal design phase. You develop a detailed description from feedback, including: 

Target market

Estimated production costs

Along with product designers and engineers, you’ll develop formal engineering specifications and requirements for the product.

When you've created this blueprint for your concept, you need more testing to prove your prototype solves a problem. 

To do this, introduce your product to a small group of prospective customers. This will help you understand whether they believe the concept works and how they might receive it after launch. 

Incorporate critical feedback into improvements you can break down and document for testing. This ensures precision before development. 

Once you’re sure the concept is feasible from design and problem-based perspectives, you'll want to ensure that it’s viable for your business by:

Developing a strategic marketing analysis outlining how you plan to promote, price, and position your product

Conducting a financial analysis to forecast sales, estimate costs, and predict profits correlated to the marketing efforts and growth goals

These analyses should align with your financial goals and demonstrate a sustainable revenue model to support the business. 

If your business aims for annual revenue growth of 5% and the concept won't break even for four years, you’ll need to revisit how to make it financially economical for the company.

However, if both analyses align with your broader business goals, the concept can advance to the product development stage.

In the product development stage, you turn your concept into reality. 

The first step is creating a prototype on design software to illustrate the finished product's appearance. Once you have the prototype, you can use it to make the finished product and generate revenue. 

The company’s budget and time constraints will determine the kind of prototype and how extensive it will be. You should also consider why you need your prototype and who it is for.

For example, key stakeholders may need a prototype as proof of concept. In this case, you may want to create one that extensively illustrates the product's core functions. 

On the other hand, you may want user feedback to refine the product. Here, starting with a simple prototype and performing usability, feature concept, and A/B testing in user research may be the best approach. 

Prototype testing can take many forms, including:

Breadboard testing

You create a basic prototype to determine feasibility from design and engineering perspectives. You also may prototype specific components of the finished product. 

For example, if you're looking to build a trailer, you might design the hitch to ensure it's compatible with most vehicles.

Computer simulation

Using a computer-aided design (CAD) program, you can build an electronic representation of your product. Many CAD programs allow you to simulate real-world forces that may impact your prototype and test how well it handles different stressors.

Force testing

Understanding a physical product's durability is essential to the testing process. You want to understand how much force your product can take before it breaks. 

Depending on the product, you may need to disclose that information or design the product within certain tolerance limits. Even if there isn’t a legal mandate, you'll want to conduct force testing to ensure your product is as durable as possible. 

Stress testing

This is the tech equivalent of force testing. It evaluates how many users servers and processors can handle before breaking. 

Can the system handle the load if 1,000 or 10,000 users hit a button simultaneously? Or would the system break, sending users a 404 error?

Packaging testing

Some teams overlook fulfillment logistics when it comes to designing products. Ensuring your product can be shipped safely and cost-effectively in standard-size packaging is vital.

Moreover, if your product includes food, medicine, or other perishable products, design your product in compliance with applicable shipping laws and regulations in the relevant jurisdictions.

These forms of prototype testing are beneficial, but they take time and money. At the least, building a prototype and gathering stakeholder feedback is essential. You can incorporate their comments into the product and make improvements before showing it to potential users for more feedback. 

They'll likely see things you miss and provide invaluable feedback to improve your concept multiple times before production.

Once you’ve finished prototype testing, you'll manufacture a small batch of the minimum viable product (MVP) to test in the marketplace. This ensures your concept is viable before full development.

Test marketing

Test marketing involves getting feedback from prospective customers on your MVP. 

You don’t just hand a consumer the product and ask for feedback. This stage goes beyond that and includes:

Showing the product in its packaging

Informing participants of the price

Getting their opinion on marketing copy 

Clearly communicating the value propositions

Asking for feedback on the product, its positioning, price, and packaging.

NPD is about managing and mitigating the risks of developing a new product. Many new products fail to resonate with consumers because of unappealing messaging or pricing.

That’s why you test the marketing alongside the product to determine whether you need to improve your approach. You can also use this feedback to validate or reassess consumer demand and ensure you have the resources to meet it.

You're ready to prepare for launch when you've gathered sufficient feedback and made any necessary changes. The formal launch may include press and promotional events. 

At this stage, you’ll decide what a formal launch looks like and create goals to measure success. You’ll also be: 

Preparing a multi-channel marketing strategy

Soliciting pre-orders

Getting sales, marketing, and customer service teams training 

Developing a product-led growth strategy to scale rapidly

Pre-launch involves countless adjustments to ensure your product makes the right first impression. Once you've set a formal launch date, it's essential to stick to it. It’s easy to fixate on soliciting feedback, but most feedback can be saved for later at this point. 

Once the product is out in the world, monitoring performance is critical. You can evaluate whether you achieved your launch goals using press coverage, consumer sentiment, and financial data. 

If the product's success metrics are underwhelming, insights into that data can help you make the adjustments necessary to improve its performance. 

• Tips for creating a new product development plan

Creating a working NPD plan is tricky. New products take a lot of time and effort. 

Product development involves intense collaboration across departments and strategic business units. Organizational dynamics and task conflicts may come into play if several projects are running.

NPD plans are also deadline-driven. Senior leaders may set a deadline to bring a product to market. Aside from the set date, they’ll likely set multiple internal deadlines, which may be crucial. 

Several moving parts can result in a failed launch. On the other side, companies worldwide successfully launch new products every day. To maximize your chance of a successful product launch, keep these tips in mind:

Team alignment  

Developing a successful product from concept to launch requires many stakeholders across various parts of the process. 

If some team members understand the product, marketing, strategy, or their role differently, you may face delays, mistakes, and wasted resources. 

Ensure team members are on the same page by maintaining solid communication throughout the process.

Center your customers' needs

Building products that resonate with customers is significantly easier when you design with your customers' needs, challenges, and pain points in mind. 

NPD demands constant feedback. Use finite resources strategically to maximize the feedback quality from prospective users and customers at every stage of the process. 

The next step is to analyze feedback and alter the prototype to fit user needs.

Build and lead a strong team

Ensure your NPD team has the necessary internal skills to execute the launch goals. Seek professionals who bring creativity, curiosity, humor, and empathy under pressure and tight deadlines. 

NPD can be intense, and disagreements about aspects of the product or process can emerge, so the right mindset is critical. Recruit people who can handle workplace disagreements respectfully and gracefully. 

Set the tone by: 

Offering clear direction and communication

Listening with empathy to your team members

Providing support in a collaborative, cooperative environment

• Common NPD mistakes businesses make

Given the time, resources, and risk of engaging in NPD, it's important to get it right and set appropriate goals. 

That said, businesses make common mistakes that can quickly jeopardize the entire effort.

This often starts with conducting limited research in the early stages. Some developers get enamored with an idea and skip due diligence. They miss out on discovering whether the idea is unique and the best solution. 

Some teams don't conduct thorough analyses. It’s vital to determine whether the product is financially viable and the marketing efforts necessary to achieve revenue projections.

Another common mistake is soliciting too little feedback. Sometimes, teams gather limited feedback due to a lack of resources or looming deadlines. 

Some teams skip or limit testing, so they may miss critical improvements, weakening the product's potential.

Other businesses assemble the wrong teams, with misaligned skills and weak leaders. 

This can cause:

A lack of direction

Inconsistent communication

Personality-based conflicts

Serious delays and cost issues

These issues can lead to a lackluster product that underperforms or doesn’t launch at all.

• How long does it take to get a new product to market?

The time it takes to bring a new product to market varies greatly and depends on many factors, including product complexity, budget, and company size. 

Naturally, you'd expect it to take longer to launch a new piece of undersea drilling equipment than a new line of T-shirts. 

Even if you compare the same products, the time-to-launch period will also vary based on: 

The amount of resources each company can dedicate to the process

Competing priorities

Experience launching new products

External economic factors

Many products take six months to two years or longer to market.

Learn more about product feedback analysis software

What is the main goal of new product development.

New product development aims to create and launch a new product aligned with a business's brand and financial goals. The goal is to maximize potential profit while minimizing risk by solving a problem unique to the marketplace.

What are the four types of new product development?

Typically, new products are launched in the following categories: 

New to the market

New to the business

An improvement of an existing product 

An extension of an existing product

Get started today

Go from raw data to valuable insights with a flexible research platform

Editor’s picks

Last updated: 23 March 2023

Last updated: 21 December 2023

Last updated: 29 June 2023

Last updated: 25 June 2023

Last updated: 23 May 2023

Last updated: 27 June 2023

Last updated: 21 March 2024

Last updated: 30 March 2024

Last updated: 26 May 2023

Last updated: 12 April 2023

Last updated: 22 July 2023

Last updated: 10 August 2023

Latest articles

Related topics, log in or sign up.

Get started for free

A practical guide to product development research

Understanding your target customers' needs and behaviours is a crucial step in the new product development process. Here we explore product development research and how it can give your brand the direction is needs.

What is product development research?

Why is product development research important, stages of product development research, types of product development testing.

Product development research is the process of finding out how the product or feature you’re currently working on is progressing, whether there are any changes in your target audience’s needs and whether you need to make any adjustments to the product.

Depending on where you are in your product’s life cycle will dictate the kind of product development research you do and how it might impact your overall product development process.

In your product research process you can find out things like what features customers might be willing to pay more for, or figuring out how you can increase customer loyalty. And you might want to investigate a decline in interest or sales to make sure your product maintains success.

Whatever stage your product development is at, you’ll definitely want to keep track of its progress and stay on top of any emerging trends that might affect your product life cycle. You can do all of this with research into your product development.

It’s vital for businesses to develop products that fulfil the needs and desires of customers. This is what will keep customers happy and loyal, and it’ll ensure that the business’s products remain successful, and, better still, become even more successful.

Gauging market demand through product development research – easily done with platforms like Attest – is a surefire way to get to the root of what consumers want, allowing you to offer them truly useful and desirable products.

Surveying your target audience throughout your product development process, from its initial stages through to its final stage, launch and future iterations, is key to staying on top of trends and changes in customer needs.

Your marketing research and exploratory research should reveal the insights you need to continue reaching and satisfying your target customers. You’ll hear opinions directly from your customers, meaning that the products you go on to develop will be made for and with your customers.

Launch your product development research

Attest’s advanced market research platform and quick turnaround of survey results help you take the guesswork out of product development.

There are a few key stages of the product development research process that you should know about to make sure you create successful products that are right for your customers.

Take a look at our intro to the new product development market research (NPD) process, summarising the 9 key steps to explore throughout your project:

Exploratory

Exploratory research is what usually happens at the earliest stage of the new product development process.

During this stage you might not necessarily know what your outcome will be, what your product will look like, how exactly it’ll address potential customers’ needs and ensure customer satisfaction. This is when you’ll explore these areas and more to find out what direction you’ll take with your new products.

At the exploratory stage, market researchers will delve into data around consumers, their pain points and their general product usage, usually working closely with the Product team to make sure these insights are reflected in the product roadmap.

Once ideas about products and features have been developed during the exploratory stage, many companies then take an even deeper look into issues and topics that emerged in the previous stage.

Ideas you might have had earlier on in the product development process will be scrutinised here to help you understand the value of your offering to your potential customers.

Iterative development

Later in the product life cycle process is when you’ll carry out iterative development research. At this stage you’ll analyse and refine your product and its features to make sure the final product you provide to your customers is comprehensive and eliminates their pain points.

Iterative market research can be intricate and involve in-depth analysis of seemingly insignificant features. Things like A/B testing can be done at this stage – that might be testing different versions of a website button or packaging design.

There are a range of product research types that businesses typically explore when they’re defining customer preferences and prepping their potential product for the marketplace.

Each of these types of product development testing cover the spectrum of new product research, all the way from concept testing to post-launch satisfaction and ongoing success. And these testing types can be done in many different ways, ranging from small, intimate, mainly qualitative market research and focus groups to large, mainly quantitative surveys. Let’s get right into the different types of product development testing.

Concept testing

There’s absolutely no point in launching a product without being confident that the idea will resonate with consumers, and will ultimately be a success.

That’s why, right at the beginning of the new product life cycle you should carry out concept testing . This is where you’ll figure out, through extensive research, whether that product or feature you’ve been mulling over will actually give people what they’re looking for- by appealing to consumer preferences .

Concept testing can involve testing anything from brand assets like a new logo or website page to commercial features like the pricing structure, or even as a way to uncover a new customer segment.

Gain confidence in your concepts

Test your concepts with Attest’s quality audiences to help you launch successful products.

User experience research

It’s crucial for marketing, product, insights and innovation professionals to have a full understanding of how an end user interacts with the product or service on a functional level. Are customers able to navigate around the website or platform easily? Or open the physical product quickly? How do they feel as they interact with the product? How easy is it for them to complete their ultimate task?

These are the kinds of questions you should hope to answer through your user experience testing.

It’s super important at this stage to enlist real consumers who might be interested in your product. Even if the users uncover issues with your product or don’t immediately fall in love with it, that’s fine – what matters is that it’s useful insight directly from the people your product is targeted at.

Pricing research

Knowing where to price your product is a battle all companies face at some point. You need your brand to offer a quality product at a price that’s cost effective and competes with other market leaders, but you don’t want your price to be so high that people buy elsewhere, or so low that you miss out on revenue.

Through pricing research you’ll find out what your target customers are willing to pay for what you offer, allowing you to find the sweet spot – the price at which you can maximise revenue, profit and market share.

This is also the perfect time for you to find out if it’s worth your while to offer your customers any discounts, and if so, where in their journey these are most likely to be effective.

Market and competitor research

While it’s obviously super important to carry out research into your own product and offering, don’t forget to stay on top of what’s going on in your industry.

Conducting market and competitor research is vital if you want to offer your potential customers an industry-beating product.

And remember to iterate on your market and competitor research – repeat and build on your research to make sure you have a full understanding of industry trends and so you can identify new ones.

Satisfaction and loyalty research

And your product development research doesn’t end once your product’s out there in the market. Are your customers truly satisfied with your offering? Are you giving them reasons to be loyal to your brand?

It’s a mistake to assume that your customers are satisfied just because they chose to buy from your company. It’s vital that you continue assessing your customers’ happiness and desires, and to make sure you’re on top of any unmet needs.

We hope this practical guide to product development research has been useful for you, and that you can take this insight and continue developing concepts and products that wow your customers.

Always-on, iterative market research is a key way for you to discover ways you can enhance your product offering and make sure you leave customers satisfied with and loyal to your brand.

Create products that your customers really want

Gauge market demand and understand consumer preferences to create the best possible product by running NPD research with Attest.

Elliot Barnard

Customer Research Lead 

Elliot joined Attest in 2019 and has dedicated his career to working with brands carrying out market research. At Attest Elliot takes a leading role in the Customer Research Team, to support customers as they uncover insights and new areas for growth.

Related articles

People want to shop green – what can brands and retailers do to help them, sustainability, why do uk consumers love neobanks, how close is the uk to becoming a cashless society, subscribe to our newsletter.

Fill in your email and we’ll drop fresh insights and events info into your inbox each week.

* I agree to receive communications from Attest. Privacy Policy .

You're now subscribed to our mailing list to receive exciting news, reports, and other updates!

Thank you for registering. Please keep an eye on your emails for further information.

• Login to Survey Tool Review Center
• How to Use Qualitative and Quantitative Research in Product Development

Summary: The use of consumer research to impact product development can be traced back to the origins of marketing research in the CPG industry. Traditional consumer research often combined qualitative and quantitative research, which is still the best approach to support product development decisions.

5 minutes to read. By author Michaela Mora on May 24, 2021 Topics: Analysis Techniques , New Product Development , Qualitative Research , Quantitative Research

The use of qualitative and quantitative research in new product development often varies depending on the field and expertise of the stakeholders in the product development process, but using both is nothing new.

The use of consumer research in product development can be traced back to the origins of marketing research in the CPG industry, which traditionally has combined qualitative and quantitative research methods to develop successful products.

For many years, methods such as focus groups and concept tests based on surveys have been the dominant approaches. They are still in use today, but with new technologies and the proliferation of digital products (e.g. software, apps, websites), a call for a more agile process came in the ’00s. It was taking too long to get user feedback.

The ability to quickly create digital prototypes made it possible to allow for improvement through iteration based on continuous user research .

Unfortunately, instead of focusing on getting faster to user feedback, the focus has been moved to speeding the whole product development process while cutting costs. Ironically, user research gets often squeezed out of this race.

High Speed, Bad Research, No Research

Quality decline, in both qualitative and quantitative research, is one of the unexpected consequences of this movement.

Designers, product managers, engineers, and developers, with little training in research, have taken over product development, especially in the digital realm. Most have a “UX/UI” label attached to their titles as if this on its own speaks to their research expertise.

Companies make it worse when they search to hire unicorns. They want people who can do everything (research, design, development).

Let’s be clear. They can’t. There are not enough hours in the day to do it all. There are fewer to do it well. Many are unaware of the training that takes to keep your biases in check when you are both the creator and the evaluator of a product. They are rarely, if ever, a good representation of the product users.

When I ask non-researchers in the UX field if they do user research, I always hear some variation of “We talk to our users.” If I dig deeper, I invariably discover informal conversations without clear direction (to be more natural) or with too much focus on specific product features (to solve the backlog).

 As “talking to users” seems like something anybody can do, the quality of user interviews, the dominant qualitative research method used today, has gone downhill.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is unstructured and exploratory in nature. This is the best approach when we don’t know what to expect when we trying to define the problem or develop an approach to the problem. Moreover, it is very useful to go deeper into issues of interest and explore nuances related to the problem at hand.

Qualitative research often uses small samples, which by their sheer size are not representative of the target market we are trying to understand. Even if we include people with certain criteria, there are often not enough of them to be able to generalize to a larger population.

This is means, qualitative research is not the best approach for Go/No-Go decisions .

Data Collection

The most common qualitative data collection techniques are:

• In-Depth Interview / User Interview
• Focus Group (in-person, online)
• Asynchronous Online Bulletin Board
• Ethnographic observation (in-person, digital)
• Contextual Inquiry
• Diary or Journal (physical/ digital)
• Task-based Usability Interviews (moderated and unmoderated)
• Co-creation workshops

Qualitative Analysis Techniques

Qualitative research techniques tend to generate large amounts of unstructured data despite the small samples. Consequently, analyzing qualitative data to give it some structure to reveal hidden patterns in nuances is a time-consuming and arduous task.

Doing a short summary based on memory from an interview or discussion or a cursory glance at transcripts, (if any) leads often to a massive loss of rich insights that qualitative data can generate.

Unfortunately, the analysis task can’t be delegated yet to text analytics tools based on natural language algorithms yet to lessen the burden of the qualitative researcher. 

Use of Qualitative Research in Product Development

You should use Qualitative Research in new product development to:

• Identify the jobs the users are trying to do (JTBD), namely their needs and goals so you can develop new products that do the said job.
• Explore reactions to potential perceived benefits of your product to help determine product features needed to support such benefits.
• Uncover the customer journey towards your product, including underlying motivations and factors that influence the decision to buy your and your competitors’ products
• Understand positive and negative perceptions about a product category that can affect how to position your product.
• Provide information needed to design a quantitative product testing
• Explain findings from quantitative product testing

Quantitative Research

Primary quantitative research is conclusive in its purpose as it tries to quantify the problem and understand how prevalent it is by looking for projectable results to a larger population.

This type of research uses structured data collected from a large number of representative cases, which allows for statistical analysis.

The most common quantitative data collection methods are:

• Observation (e.g. sales, visits, audits, etc.)
• Experiment (e.g. A/B Testing, test markets, etc.)
• Quantitative Remote Usability Testing
• In-Home Product Testing (often combined with surveys)

Quantitative Analysis Techniques

In new product development research, we collect data for specific analysis techniques that support new product development decisions. Depending on the objectives, we can choose one or more of the following:

• Product Concept Testing
• Positioning Concept Testing
• Conjoint Analysis
• Maximum Difference Scaling (MaxDiff)
• Pairwise Comparisons
• Market Segmentation

Use of Quantitative Research in Product Development

Quantitative Research is useful in new product development to:

• Quantify preferences for product features and product configurations to guide the product development process.
• Recommend a final course of action on which product version to launch.
• Find consensus on product appeal, benefits, and current or potential customers’ purchase intent
• Identify evidence regarding different factors relevant to usage and purchase behavior
• Test specific hypotheses about your products and guide decisions on the course of actions
• Identify and size market segments for your products
• Project results to a larger population of customers you are targeting

In conclusion, combining both approaches when developing new products, either physical or digital, will give you a solid foundation to make the right decisions for your business grounded in customer insights.

A version of this article was originally published on February 9, 2010. The article was last updated and revised on May 24, 2021.

Related Articles

• How to Use Digital Ethnography to Understand Real Product Use
• Top Reason Why Businesses Fail & What To Do About It
• 12 Research Techniques to Solve Choice Overload
• 9 Product Development Strategies to Consider
• What is Agile Product Development?
• Concept Testing Webinar
• UX Research Methods For User-Centric Design
• What is User Experience?
• Product Bundling: To Do or Not To Do?
• Why Do Concept Testing On Your Offers’ Fine Print
• Why You Need Positioning Concept Testing in New Product Development
• How To Use Research To Find High-Order Brand Benefits
• Use Menu-Based Conjoint Analysis To Optimize New Products
• How Product Positioning Affects Product Evaluations
• Write Winning Product Concepts To Get Accurate Results In Concept Tests

Subscribe to our newsletter to get notified about future articles

Subscribe and don’t miss anything!

Recent Articles

• Re: Design/Growth Podcast – Researching User Experiences for Business Growth
• Why Conjoint Analysis Is Best for Price Research
• The Rise of UX
• Making the Case Against the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter
• How to Future-Proof Experience Management and Your Business
• When Using Focus Groups Makes Sense
• How to Make Segmentation Research Actionable
• How To Integrate Market Research and UX Research for Desired Business Outcomes
• How To Get Value Out of Your Research Budget

Popular Articles

• Which Rating Scales Should I Use?
• What To Consider in Survey Design
• Step by Step Guide to the Market Research Process
• 6 Decisions To Make When Designing Product Concept Tests
• What Is Market Research?
• The Opportunity of UX Research Webinar
• Myths & Misunderstandings About UX – MR Realities Podcast
• Concept Testing for UX Researchers
• UX Research Geeks Podcast – Using Market Research for Better Context in UX
• A Researcher’s Path – Data Stories Leaders At Work Podcast
• How to Leverage UX and Market Research To Understand Your Customers
• How To Improve Racial and Gender Inclusion in Survey Design

• Privacy Overview
• Strictly Necessary Cookies

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.

New Product Development Research: What It Is, Stages, and Examples

Are you thinking of bringing a new product to the market this year? Congratulations, yours will be one of more than 30,000 new entries! We’re going to help you stand out.

Yes, there are indeed that many new products being introduced to the market every year, according to   Harvard Business School . However, it is estimated that an overwhelming majority of them fail.

“Many new products fail because their creators use an ineffective market segmentation mechanism. It’s time for companies to look at products the way customers do: as a way to get a job done.”   – Harvard Business School.

Still want to launch? Have you rigorously tested your concept, developed a plan to turn it into a business, designed the product, and created a sound strategy for market entry?

And those are just four of the seven boxes you need to check if you really want your product to succeed. But don’t panic. If you conduct new product development research, you will gain the necessary consumer and market intelligence to make it among the few new products that survive and keep on thriving.

What Is New Product Development Research?

New product development is the process of bringing a new product to the market! And to do that, businesses conduct ongoing market research throughout the process to ensure they are creating a product based on intelligence rather than intuition. This is key.

So, market research tailored specifically to the success of a new product in the market is what is referred to as new product development research. It comprises primary and secondary, qualitative and quantitative research methods used in other forms of market research––but the difference is in the goals.

When you understand the role of new product development research, you will appreciate the process more and hopefully incorporate it in your current or future projects.

The Role of Research at Different Stages of Product Development

Net Solutions has laid out a beautiful illustration of   the product development process . It is broken down into seven stages; but keep in mind that product development is an ongoing process throughout the life cycle of the product or service. Iteration happens even when the product in question isn’t broken.

While Net Solutions’ tutorial is focused on tech product development, we are going to use the steps to show you the role of new product development research in the process for any type of product.

1. Idea generation

Good business ideas come with a solution to an existing problem or a way to improve the way things are done. There are many sources for good ideas starting with personal struggles, anecdotal information, access to relevant data, and concerted efforts in research and development.

When organizations need to come up with fresh ideas, a deliberate effort must be made. Since investing in research and development is out of reach for most businesses, brainstorming and new product market research is the surest path.

An organization’s proprietary, CRM, sales, and operation data – internal secondary research – may reveal previously hidden opportunities behind customer feedback or employee experiences at work.

While this often helps with the improvement of the current product, it sometimes leads to the development of entirely new products. Productivity apps are often created this way.

Ideas may also come from qualitative and quantitative research through surveys, interviews, and direct observation. This is a good approach for people starting out in business when they don’t have access to sufficient volumes of internal data.

Thirdly, ideas may be generated by analyzing consumer conversations and news media data on social media, review sites, and discussion forums through advanced techniques such as web scraping,   social listening , and   sentiment analysis . This way, potential markets are identified based on themes in natural consumer conversations and trends.

2. Idea screening

The first step is essential to exploring the open avenues, but it is not enough to determine the viability of any single idea. The second stage is idea screening where the feasibility of the idea as a business opportunity is determined.

Through new product development research, the organization can pick one idea to pursue – you don’t want to implement multiple ideas at a go. The SWOT analysis is a great way to screen ideas by comparing them to the market and to each other.

The strengths of an idea are the internal attributes that make it viable. If it solves an obvious problem, then the product or service will face less difficulty during market entry. Even better is if it can be developed easily and cheaply, which makes it more affordable.

An idea may require a large initial capital investment, or the end product may depend on third parties. These internal attributes are weaknesses which make it less viable.

Opportunities around an idea may be other verticals to where it may be extended into other categories adjacent to the brand. Or there might be added benefits that weren’t previously considered. For instance, an ecommerce store may collect customer data that can be shared with the producers to improve their businesses.

Threats to the idea include competition, high market regulation, and security risks.

New product development research can help answer such questions in the SWOT analysis through consumer data as well as the study of market factors such as production costs and distribution channels.

3. Concept development

Concept development is about developing the idea to a point that it can be successfully explained to a potential customer i.e. they can   buy   into it. Starting at this stage, the new product development research focuses on the one idea that made it through the screening stage.

One on one interactions with target consumers can help the brand better understand the product from the user’s perspective. For instance, it can help study the balance between what the consumer gains and the tradeoff in using the product.

A modern consumer intelligence platform can help study trends and consumer expectations to create a compelling value proposition.

With an advanced market intelligence platform, the brand can understand the target market in terms of the existing competition and potential allies. The platform can also deploy its social listening antennas to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the competing products through consumer conversations and feedback.

The data gathered is analyzed and the insights used to improve the concept before proceeding to build a business on it.

4. Business analysis

After proof of concept is established, the business framework should be created before going any further with the development of the product itself. This includes how to market, price, and deliver the product.

New product development research can be used to compare the different marketing avenues available to the brand (based on budget and target audience). Social listening can help study the voice of the customer and the insights used to craft marketing messages in a way that appeals to the audience.

Other than the cost of production, other factors may influence the price of the product. Brands use secondary research to determine their pricing model through benchmarking. Modern methods such as sentiment analysis can help understand how consumers feel about the current prices, bringing in a third factor.

Delivering the product here refers to how the buyer obtains value from your product or service. Through focus groups, the brand can get a closer look at how consumers perceive the concept before it is developed into a product.

5. Product development

With a business plan on hand, the creator can proceed to make a prototype and a minimum viable product (MVP). These processes require both internal and external data.

A prototype is simply a visualized concept. It is important in cases where the creator needs the help of others such as VCs and talent to develop the product. For both virtual and physical products, as well as services, research may involve methods such as observation and use of existing products and interviews with experts.

An MVP is a step above prototype because it works. It does the most basic set of functions the product is designed to do. Testing data – internal secondary research – is invaluable during the improvement of the MVP into a product that’s ready to launch.

6. Product launch

The product launch is probably the most crucial stage in the new product development process. Products that don’t hit their targets at launch rarely recover. On the other hand, those that succeed at launch are likely to maintain their trajectory.

As such, new product development research is critical to understanding consumer motivations, timing the launch, and communicating effectively with the target.

Understanding consumer motivations for seeking such a solution as you have will help build anticipation for the launch. Surveys can be used to get direct feedback about individual struggles of the target consumers while social listening can be used to listen in as they share their experiences with each other.

Social listening can also reveal the trends and mood of the target consumers in order to launch the product under the most auspicious circumstances.

7. Market entry

Post launch, the new business is primarily focused on building a reputable image i.e. brand development. This means promoting the product and fostering a good relationship with the customers.

Consumer research helps understand how buyers are using the product to solve their problems. This feedback may be shared directly through email, social media DMs and comments, or business websites. It can also be expressed indirectly through social media posts, external review sites, and forums.

Capturing consumer data through CRM software is the first step to building a strong relationship with the customers. Analysis of the data over time provides useful intelligence upon which to base strategic decisions.

New Product Development Research Example

New product development research should be conducted across all industries, not just tech products. And not just for products but for services too.

For instance, a major beverage manufacturer recently used NetBase Quid ®   to look into the cannabis-infused beverage trend. They think that it is an area of interest and although they are not making any decisions yet on entering the market, they still want to know what’s going on.

The idea came to them after having noticed a growth in news coverage on the subject. This was their idea generation stage.

So, they used NetBase Quid ®   to look into it to see who was driving the conversation and determine whether it was a solid trend or passing fad. If it turned out to be a trend, this would be a legit signal for an emerging market opportunity for them. This is idea screening.

They went further into the analysis to see how consumers were using cannabis. For instance, were they using it with or in beverages; what kinds of beverages; and were there any preferred brands and why? Concept development has taken shape and this is where they currently are.

Cannabis-infused beverages.

The business analysis stage shouldn’t be too complicated for them as they are already manufacturing beverages. Through concept development, they will have determined the best way to introduce cannabis beverages to the target market.

Through product development, they would use the insights gathered from the first adopters to improve the product.

Next would be the product launch guided by comprehensive data analysis then a data-driven strategy to establish themselves as a leading brand in the category.

New product development research is an invaluable aspect of the process of turning an idea into a sustainable business.

If more than nine out of every 10 new products launched are failing, it’s because the majority of creators aren’t following the process. If they did, we’d have far fewer products being launched and a much higher success rate.

New product development research can tell you when to proceed and when to take a step back. It can help you discover the thing in your idea that makes it irrelevant to the market or poorly timed so you don’t waste your resources on a failed project.

On the flip side, it can give you the confidence you need to keep improving until you have the perfect solution for the problem you have identified.

Not only can NetBase Quid ®   collect and analyze consumer and market data at large scale, the platform allows you to do it quickly, repeatedly, and inexpensively compared to traditional research. This means you have all the information you need, at all times, and more time to focus on making your product better.

Reach out for a demo   today to get a special introduction to the platform by one of our in-house experts!

Jira Software

Project and issue tracking

Content collaboration

Jira Service Management

High-velocity ITSM

Visual project management

• View all products

Marketplace

Connect thousands of apps and integrations for all your Atlassian products

Developer Experience Platform

Jira Product Discovery

Prioritization and roadmapping

You might find helpful

Cloud Product Roadmap

Atlassian Migration Program

Work Management

Manage projects and align goals across all teams to achieve deliverables

IT Service Management

Enable dev, IT ops, and business teams to deliver great service at high velocity

Agile & DevOps

Run a world-class agile software organization from discovery to delivery and operations

BY TEAM SIZE

Small Business

BY TEAM FUNCTION

Software Development

BY INDUSTRY

Telecommunications

Professional Services

What's new

Atlassian together.

Get Atlassian work management products in one convenient package for enterprise teams.

Atlassian Trust & Security

Customer Case Studies

Atlassian University

Atlassian Playbook

Product Documentation

Developer Resources

Atlassian Community

Atlassian Support

Enterprise Services

Partner Support

Purchasing & Licensing

Work Life Blog

Support for Server products ends February 15, 2024

With end of support for our Server products fast approaching, create a winning plan for your Cloud migration with the Atlassian Migration Program.

Assess my options

Atlassian Presents: Unleash

Product updates, hands-on training, and technical demos – catch all that and more at our biggest agile & DevOps event.

• Atlassian.com
• Product Management
• New product development process

New Product Development - The 7-Step Process Explained

Browse topics.

Delivering innovative products can help you gain a competitive advantage, but maintaining that advantage requires continuously delivering new products that keep pace with your customers' evolving needs. New product development is the key to building and keeping market share and customer loyalty.

What is new product development?

New product development is the end-to-end process of creating a product that has never been brought to market—from idea to concept, prototyping, developing, testing, and launch. It involves building a product strategy and roadmap to successfully guide cross-functional teams and stakeholders through the entire process.

Unlike product enhancements and upgrades that modify and improve existing products, new product development addresses the unique challenges of designing and delivering brand-new products. This article discusses the seven stages of new product development, some challenges Agile teams face along the way, and how you can succeed.

The 7 stages of new product development

Successful Agile software development takes careful planning and good project management practices . The seven stages of new product development guide you through the process by breaking the work into stages or steps.

1. Generating ideas

Every new product begins with a problem and ideas to solve it. Ideas may come from within the company, such as the customer service team, or from outside via customer and market research. In this phase, it's important to gather all ideas without discrimination. The more ideas you can brainstorm, the better.

Products such as Jira Product Discovery help product teams structure the chaos of prolific ideas. Ideas can be supported by data, customer feedback, sales input, support tickets, and more to help shape what the product team should focus on, creating ongoing feedback loops. Idea generation is most effective as a team activity with the outcome of developing the essential elements for a new product. 

To help you prioritize ideas, methods such as a SWOT or Competitive analysis take the guess-work out of the process. When generating ideas, having a clear understanding of where opportunities exist and knowing how the competition stacks up can lead to brainstorming disruptive and game-changing ideas.

2. Screening ideas

Agile teams can use Jira Product Discovery matrixes to view a large number of ideas, using criteria such as impact, effort, and confidence level before scoring and selecting which ideas to move into the next phase. Gathering and organizing product ideas in a centralized tool makes it easier for product teams to prioritize which ideas or features will drive the most impact.

Scoring ideas by product development effort versus the overall impact of the solution is an excellent way to focus on those with the most impact. The SWOT and competitive analysis templates from step 1 can provide the foundation for where to place priorities. 

You can also identify good ideas that are simply not right for this new product but may be suitable for future products and the goals of the team. Screening ideas can be difficult, but aligning each good idea to your goals and comparing its impact to other ideas will help identify the most impactful opportunities.

3. Creating a product strategy

After selecting ideas to develop into a new product, it's time to create your product strategy. This is a concise definition of the need that the new product meets. A good product strategy includes the vision, target market or user, position in the industry, features and benefits, and the value the new product brings to the business. This phase involves creating a clear definition of the requirements.

Confluence offers a strategic plan template that can help you refine your strategy messaging, remove ambiguity, and clearly communicate the goal. From here, the Confluence requirements template walks you through the process of outlining your objectives and success metrics, listing assumptions and options to address them, and adding supporting documentation. These efforts include prototyping and validating with customers, ensuring the product being built will be something that customers actually want.

4. Building a product roadmap

A product roadmap is an action plan. It outlines product functionality and release schedules and helps you manage new product development. Think of the roadmap as the core communication tool for short- and long-term efforts that align with your business goals. It's a shared source of truth for a product’s vision, direction, priorities, and progress over time. Creating a great product roadmap keeps your entire team working together and moving in the same direction. They also make it easy to check in on the work at any time throughout the product development life cycle.

Product teams using Jira Product Discovery can then share their product strategy using always-up-to-date, custom roadmaps to present which ideas will be built, when, and why.

5. Prototyping

Time to market is critical for new product development, and your ability to rapidly prototype and develop products ensures viable solutions. Jira Product Discovery’s integration with software development tools like Jira Software makes it easy to seamlessly connect your entire software delivery lifecycle.

Defects and change requests are simply a fact of new product development, but concise tracking and issue management keep everyone on your team informed, organized, and on schedule. Testing can span both internal quality assurance (QA) teams as well as customers and end users engaged in alpha, beta, or user acceptance testing. Jira Software is the leading tool that Agile teams use for testing, in part because it optimizes the QA workflow by writing and managing test scripts, tracking test cases, and managing defects. 

The product roadmap template from the previous step, along with other Confluence project planning templates , also inform testing and help ensure you miss nothing.

7. Product launch

You only get one chance to make a good first impression, and launching a new product requires careful planning and delivery. Every step in the process is a building block to a successful launch. Confluence’s product launch template helps ensure a smooth launch.

Additionally, sales and marketing, HR, and legal teams are already using your product strategy and roadmap to align messaging, identify opportunities, and ensure regulatory compliance. Using Jira Work Management , they can seamlessly connect their work with the product team’s. It provides a streamlined UI and integrations with the tools they use daily, such as Gantt charts and spreadsheets.

4 main types of product development

There are four types of product development, including:

• New product development : These are products that haven’t been released in the market before, such as software applications that solve new or novel customer problems. 
• New product categories : These products may not be new to the marketplace, but they are new to the company developing them. For example, a software company may expand their offering to include products within the category they currently develop, such as adding tax accounting to their portfolio of personal finance applications. 
• Product line extensions : These expand the products offered within the organization’s existing range of products, such as adding new industries within a category. For example, a company may develop accounting software for the construction industry and decide to extend their accounting software to the airline industry.
• Product enhancements : These are new features and capabilities within existing products. Companies generally design them to provide customers with new or added value. Enhancements respond to changes in the market, performance issues, or new competitive products. 

Example of new product development

Whether creating a new product that hasn’t been seen in the market before, or expanding an existing application to address new geographic locations, understanding the time it will take to develop is essential. 

Jira Software insights help teams make data-driven decisions based on their own historical progress. Insights can come from every aspect of the product development process and provide continuous improvement opportunities with each new product development project.  

3 challenges teams encounter in the new product development process

Great tools can help alleviate the challenges of new product development. Understanding these challenges and how to address them can keep your team on track for a successful launch.

1. Defining clear requirements

When speed is important, the requirements often become an ironclad set of instructions. While clear requirements are necessary, Agile teams must have a shared understanding of and empathy for the customer. Include various members of your team in requirements-gathering activities, such as customer interviews. When designers, developers, and QA share an understanding of user stories, they can produce results more quickly and accurately without maintaining rigid rules.

Confluence’s requirements template gives you the power to capture and update assumptions, use cases, UX design, and scope together.

2. Estimating the development effort

Working with realistic project timelines is essential for bringing new products to market and gaining a competitive advantage. However, product development tasks are notoriously difficult to estimate, and new product development can be even harder. Break work into smaller tasks for more accurate estimates. In addition to giving you more flexibility with resource assignments, smaller tasks minimize the impact on your overall project when something takes longer than expected.

Many Agile teams have switched from traditional estimates to story points—units that measure the effort teams require to fully implement a user story. A user story is an informed explanation of a feature from the user's perspective. With Jira Software, Agile teams track story points, reflect, and quickly recalibrate estimates.

3. Siloed tools

Collaboration is a critical component in your team's success and the success of their products. Development teams use a variety of specialized tools, such as visual design tools for creating mock-ups and instant messaging apps for hosting team discussions. No single tool can provide the specialized functionality for all the needs of the development team. Jira Product Discovery and Jira Software integrate with a wide range of specialized development tools to easily collect and incorporate important information.

How long does new product development take?

The time to develop a new product can vary widely based on the complexity of that product. For example, developing an application that securely processes credit card payments may take magnitudes longer than developing software to track exercise statistics. But a few tips can help reduce the time to market while maintaining quality. 

Expert tips from Atlassian for new product development

Understand the customer.

Begin with the customer’s needs in mind. The time you spend early, interviewing customers and gathering input, helps create a clear product strategy. The entire team should understand the problem they are solving for the customer. It will keep the team on track when they make decisions during development. 

Foster team collaboration

When the team has the tools for seamless collaboration, generating ideas, prioritizing issues, and solving problems is much easier. Today’s product development teams include a wide range of cross-functional roles. The best way to prevent silos and keep the team working together is with collaboration, respect, and genuine appreciation for each other’s contributions. Centralized tools such as Jira Product Discovery and Jira Software help foster this.

Define the requirements

A good product specification outlines the purpose, what the client needs the product to do, the technical and functional requirements to achieve that, design mockups, and even release plans. This foundational document takes time to create, but it helps teams refine and clarify fuzzy requirements and align on the scope of the project. 

Optimize resource allocation

Resource allocation is among the hardest aspects of new product development, so the roadmap must be well-defined before you begin. Understand the tasks included in the project, their dependencies, and the resources required. Visual workflows can help teams identify when you underutilize or overcommit resources. They can also highlight bottlenecks and roadblocks to allow teams to quickly adjust and stay on track. 

Jira makes new product development easier

Jira Software provides success tools for new product development teams to collaborate on and manage work from idea to product launch. Agile teams have made Jira the leading solution for new product development.

Jira Product Discovery is a dedicated tool that aids teams in crucial stages of product development. It helps Agile teams gather and prioritize ideas and align everyone with product roadmaps. 

With Jira Product Discovery matrixes and criteria, you can easily select which ideas to move ahead with, enhancing the experience of product development.

How to Manage Scrum Remote Teams

Learn about what scrum remote teams are, as well as how to manage them. Read about benefits, challenges and helpful tools to use.

Distributed Teams: Strategies for Success

Do you work on a distributed team, maybe remote or virtual? Learn how to manage, structure and build culture with a distributed agile team.

• Solutions Corporate Market Analysis Customer Experience Product Lifecycle Brand Strategy Research & Insights Higher Education Enrollment Management Academic Program Development Student Success Operations & Finance Advancement Marketing Grants Research & Insights K-12 Education Curriculum and Instruction Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Academic Program Planning and Impact Strategic Planning Teacher Recruitment and Retention Operational Planning School Climate Research & Insights
• Data Analysis
• Qualitative Research
• Strategic Advising
• Benchmarking & Best Practices
• Market Modeling
• Research & Insights By Industry Corporate Higher Education K–12 Education By Type Insights Blog Reports & Briefs Case Studies Webinars All Research & Insights
• Client Testimonials
• Current Openings
• Recruitment Process
• Social Impact
• Careers in Research
• Careers in Sales and Account Management
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
• Client Login

New Product Development Checklist

• Posted on: August 10, 2022
• Topic: Corporate , Product Lifecycle

New products can be highly profitable, but only if you’ve done the right research.  

In fact, the average ROI of rigorous new product development is 1,500%. But this was only obtainable because those products underwent a repetitive cycle of evaluation and enhancement. The result? When it came time to launch, those products were enthusiastically received by the market.  

Download Hanover’s New Product Development Checklist to learn how you can conduct the research you need to ensure a successful new product development process.  

With this guide, you’ll learn how to stay on track with the NPD process by:

• Defining the key phases of NPD
• Outlining the key questions you need to answer at each phase
• Understanding the research approaches needed to gain meaningful insights

Create Successful Products

For their new products to succeed, companies must answer specific questions at each phase of the NPD process, based on data gleaned from carefully selected market research studies.

Research & Insights

Receive industry-leading insights directly in your inbox.

If you have difficulty accessing any part of this website or the products or services offered by Hanover Research, please contact us at [email protected] for support.

Become a client

Access the best custom research to help hit your organization’s goals . Request your custom consult below and a member of our team will be in touch.

Have questions? Please visit our contact page .

Let us come to you!

Receive industry insights directly in your inbox.

Our newsletters are packed with helpful tips, industry guides, best practices, case studies, and more. Enter your email address below to opt in:

57 Product Development Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best product development topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 good essay topics on product development.

• Nike New Product Development: Strategy and Ideas | Nike Report Marketing strategy development This stage entails formulating a marketing strategy that will be used in the process of introducing the product to the market.
• McDonald’s Company: New Product-Menu Development One of the main factors that contributed to McDonald’s introducing the balanced lifestyle menus was the changing needs of the customers. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• Sleep and Wake Pillow Product Development & Marketing Most producers of pillows ignore the fact that people have different sleeping styles hence the need to design a variety of pillow types to suit the needs for all.
• New Product Development: Smart Shopping Cart The ability of the Smart Shopping Cart to meet the customer’s shopping demands by quickening the checkout time will help the company retailing this product to be successful in the U.S.market.
• Foldable Fabric Trolley: Product Design and Development This phase finalize the lase stage of our project, in which it demonstrates the final product design, manufacturing plan and decision analysis, refer to Figure 2.
• Unilever’s Product Development: Collaborative Innovation There is the possibility of the comprehensive use of the efforts of the project partners at the preproduction, production, and marketing stages, which contribute to the achievement of positive externalities due to the synergistic effect.
• New Food Product Development In most cases the food may be free of pathogens but if the environment of preparation is full of normal flora, the possibility of gross contamination of food may take place and this is the […]
• New Product Development of Nokia The process of developing a new product begins when a firm identifies the need to generate a new product line to meet the needs of the customers.
• The Process of Product Development Thus, it is necessary to evaluate the physical qualities and functions of the developing product according to their attractiveness for the target audience and possibilities of the company to produce the product of such a […]
• Drink-At-Home Inc.’s New Product Development Plan In the case of the Drink-At-Home, Inc.those factors are the possibility of the final product not corresponding to the developers’ conception and the possibility that the other companies develop a similar product faster.
• New Product Development (NDP) The paper also conducts interviews on customers and company employees about the reception of Google China’s new products with the aim of developing an understanding on the effectiveness of NPD practices of the company.
• GE: Product and Process Development Headquartered in Boston, MA, GE is a giant digital industrial conglomerate dealing in a wide a range of products and services spanning from aircraft engines and parts, medical imaging, financing and power generation to industrial […]
• IDEO Product Development Strategies and Procedures David Kelly took over the leadership of IDEO since he was the owner of the largest company among the three. The increased demand for the firm’s services also led to the establishment of design centers […]
• General Motors Product Development The success of General Motors is credited to its effective leadership. The leadership has helped General Motors to abolish bureaucracy and encourage innovation.
• Product Development Model In order for a product to be successful in the market, several factors have to be considered to ensure that the new product is capable of overcoming the competition that is present in the market.
• The New Product Development Process Customer involvement in the product or service development process is the interaction or collaboration between the users of the product or service and the employees of a company during the period of product development to […]
• Generation of Unique Idea as a Success of the New Product Development Process The success of the new product development process hinges upon the uniqueness of the ideas generated. This method focuses on the inadequacies of the organization’s product to come up with ideas for developing improved products.
• Soren Chemicals: Product Development Jen Moritz was the Marketing Manager for The Water Treatment Group of Companies. She was responsible for the development of chemicals for treating drinking water and for maintaining pools.
• Globalization in the New Product Development Context However, the impact of the corporate entrepreneurship on the development a new products or services is still not quite obvious, and the effects of the new approach are yet to be seen.
• Tourism Product Development Additionally, they can be accompanied by supplementary materials, in particular, brochures that can tell buyers more about the history of a specific tourist site.
• New Product Development: Stew Leonard’s In order to improve the ability of the new product to provide customers with the needed energy within a short duration after consumption, it is imperative for the firm to ensure that the snack product […]
• The Article Overview – Another Look at How Toyota Integrates Product Development The authors reveal the most effective strategies that can be used to improve the process of product development. One of the major findings of the article is that many of strategies used at Toyota can […]
• New Product Development Process The first stage of a product development process is the idea generation stage where new ideas regarding new products are generated by the research and development department. The market demand is very important for a […]
• The Acme Toy Company’s New Product Development According to its structure, the toy can be in the form of some fantastic animal. Emphasis on uncovering the innovative capabilities of a product is vital when serving it to customers.
• Smart Glasses: The Product Development The second problem is the need to change the lenses in the glasses in case of changes in vision abilities. We will draw a picture of the challenges we need to solve with our product.
• Rapid Product Development Technology In the 21st century this is not the case because today, one of the major goals of businesses is cost-efficiency and the need to reduce time-to-market.
• New Product Development and Its Evaluation This means that a group of market researchers is developing a strategy to launch a new business product to satisfy customers’ demands and to keep its position in the market.
• Product Development: Nespresso Growth Strategies The major responsibility of Nespresso marketing is to deliver and maintain the highest possible standard of living, to see that products and services offered for sale are those desired by consumers, and to distribute them […]
• Saturn Corporation’s Product Development in 2005-06 The purpose of the research is to investigate the product development strategies of Saturn corporation during 2005-2006 and evaluate their impact on the company’s performance.
• Trends in the Product Development of Private Labels of Major Retailers It is necessary to mention, that there are numerous factors, that influence the following development of the product, and it relates not only to private labels but to every if it is not only the […]
• Social Value of New Product Development Activities The marketing mix models are concerned with either: The individual effect of a marketing decision variable and The levels of the marketing mix variables as their optimal effect on the target variable or profitability New […]
• Product Development, Branding, and Pricing Strategies Definitions The assigned topic deals with the importance of interconnectivity between the development of a product, it’s branding, and price, as well as possible tactics regarding its financial value.
• The Food Company New Product Development Group Furthermore, the significance of the project to the organization could be gauged from Gerry’s move to choose the most creative person within the company to head the new project.
• Social Networking Services and Product Development As regards our particular case, where we wish to harness the power of social networking for the benefit of the university community, a number of considerations must be taken into account.
• Ford Motors Company’s New Product Development Ford Motors will be introducing a new product in the UAE market that the company distinguishes to be one of the most innovative products in its car-making history.
• Car Seat: New Product Development Built utilizing extensive tests in ergonomic design and safety standards the Ford Prish car seat utilizes a conjunction of safety foam, impact webbing, durable materials, and safety straps to ensure the protection of an infant […]
• Product Development Strategies and Their Advantages The issue is that it may not be an easy task to justify such expenses most of the time, and many enterprises prefer approaches that are more traditional.
• New Product Development in the Highly-Competitive Bread Market Comprehensive information about market style and dynamics by determines attractive for Hovis, feasible, and profitability in line with the aims and strategic objectives.
• Fireless Cooker Product Development The production team has done a great job and is in the process of acquiring inventory that will be needed for the purpose of product manufacturing.
• Microsoft’s Challenges in Office Product Development For Office 2000, the major challenge Microsoft had to bypass was the internet [1]. The milestone concept was a good idea for Microsoft to manage the design and development of office 2000 [1].
• Squeeze Ball Product Development and Marketing Thus, the findings of the market research were to generate insight on the prevailing gaps concerning the available products in the market with the aim of fostering the intellectual, social, and physical development among children.
• Autonomous Vehicles Product Development and Launch Software experts will be expected to identify the existing opportunities, challenges, and prospects that might dictate the future of the technology.
• Pharmaceutical Product Development Inc.’s McGinty-Moss Assessment It is significant for PPD, Inc to understand its culture since organizational culture is the internal constitute of the institution. It is significant to know both the weaknesses and strengths of the organization to understand […]
• Tata Nano Company’ New Product Development In order to enhance the purchasing process, the organization will need to consider the promotion campaign, which will ensure the target Indian population in the safety of the car and the reasonability of the purchase.
• The Concept of Product Development The main objective will be examination of the effect of new product development processes to the Organization’s performance and general attitude towards the use of ‘Natures’ energy drink within the market environment.
• The Approaches and Methodologies of New Product Development The primary sources of data will include members of the product team, the marketing and sales managers, the manufacturing and production managers and the other employees who were involved in the new product development process.
• New Product Development Process at the Harmonium Media According to the trends observable in established organizations, new product development is usually the initial phase as far as generation as well as the commercialization of new products within an aggregate strategic process with regard […]
• Challenges in the New Product Development One of the ways through which the product development manager can achieve this is by ensuring participation of the various functional teams in the formulation of policies, procedures and the practices to be adopted in […]
• SmartBizSystems: New Product Development Concept In order to develop a recommendation that would help SmartBizSystems to be able to market their products, one must be able to understand the skills that are employed by the company in a bid to […]
• Textile Product Development and Engineering One of the major uses of cotton material is the production of clothing materials and one of the significant features of a good clothing material is lightness that in most cases is determined by the […]
• The Product and Service Development Process This makes it relatively easy to get increased input and active involvement of consumers in the product and service development process.
• Consumer Research in the Early Stages of New Product Development The researchers suggest that the lack of attention to this step can be due to the lack of the knowledge of effective methodology.
• Portfolio Management for New Product Development The major goals of the present study are as follows: to define the role of portfolio management, to point out the most popular techniques and define which of these dominate, to describe the portfolio methods […]
• Product Development Management For any manufacturing industry to make any meaningful success in the competitive market, proper management of the new product development process, is a must to ensure the correct products are rolled to the market at […]
• Collabo: Product Development This is meant to cover the cost of the features and the profit margins so that the firm can be efficient in its operations.
• The Process of the New Product Development Market testing and beta testing In this stage, the company will have to test the product in the market and make the necessary adjustments in relation to customer needs and expectations.
• Urban Outfitters: A “Niche” Product Development In the case of Urban Outfitters, they had come up with unique business but getting Patents and trademarks was an issue.”Niche” product is a unique product or service offered in the market as a sub-segment […]
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, March 2). 57 Product Development Essay Topic Ideas & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/product-development-essay-topics/

"57 Product Development Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." IvyPanda , 2 Mar. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/product-development-essay-topics/.

IvyPanda . (2024) '57 Product Development Essay Topic Ideas & Examples'. 2 March.

IvyPanda . 2024. "57 Product Development Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/product-development-essay-topics/.

1. IvyPanda . "57 Product Development Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/product-development-essay-topics/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "57 Product Development Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." March 2, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/product-development-essay-topics/.

• Product Management Ideas
• Marketing Management Essay Ideas
• Software Engineering Topics
• Manufacturing Essay Topics
• Market Segmentation Titles
• Operations Management Essay Titles
• Technology Essay Ideas
• Agile Project Management Research Topics
• Operations Strategy Titles
• Consumerism Topics
• Research and Development Essay Topics
• Promotion Strategy Paper Topics
• Competitive Strategy Research Ideas
• Innovation Titles
• Private Equity Research Ideas

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

Research: How Different Fields Are Using GenAI to Redefine Roles

• Maryam Alavi

Examples from customer support, management consulting, professional writing, legal analysis, and software and technology.

The interactive, conversational, analytical, and generative features of GenAI offer support for creativity, problem-solving, and processing and digestion of large bodies of information. Therefore, these features can act as cognitive resources for knowledge workers. Moreover, the capabilities of GenAI can mitigate various hindrances to effective performance that knowledge workers may encounter in their jobs, including time pressure, gaps in knowledge and skills, and negative feelings (such as boredom stemming from repetitive tasks or frustration arising from interactions with dissatisfied customers). Empirical research and field observations have already begun to reveal the value of GenAI capabilities and their potential for job crafting.

There is an expectation that implementing new and emerging Generative AI (GenAI) tools enhances the effectiveness and competitiveness of organizations. This belief is evidenced by current and planned investments in GenAI tools, especially by firms in knowledge-intensive industries such as finance, healthcare, and entertainment, among others. According to forecasts, enterprise spending on GenAI will increase by two-fold in 2024 and grow to $151.1 billion by 2027 .

• Maryam Alavi is the Elizabeth D. & Thomas M. Holder Chair & Professor of IT Management, Scheller College of Business, Georgia Institute of Technology .

Partner Center

• How We're Funded
• Staff Directory
• Board of Directors

Advancing Equity and Innovation in Research Publishing: Time for a New Era in the Open Access Movement?

Recommended.

Today marks a significant milestone as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) announces a new Open Access policy , representing a departure from traditional practices. This policy will cease support for individual article publishing fees, known as APCs, and mandate the use of preprints while advocating for their review. This blog looks at the rationale behind this change, exploring the persistent challenges in research publishing and the potential of preprint servers as a solution. It also examines the implications for researchers and research users, highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of this new approach. Finally, it offers recommendations for research funders and researchers to embrace this shift towards equity and innovation in research publishing.

The new BMGF open access policy

For a decade, the BMGF has championed transparency, access, and equity in scholarly publishing by advocating for a more open research ecosystem. Yet major challenges with research publishing persist, and as such, the foundation has decided to make a significant departure from traditional practices.

At its core, the BMGF Open Access policy will:

• End the foundation’s support for individual article publishing fees
• Require preprints and advocate for their review

The approach aligns with a strategy to reform global research publishing known as Plan U . At its core, Plan U aims to separate the slow and sometimes idiosyncratic process of quality assessment (peer review) from the publishing of research.

Why is this change needed?

Two key challenges persist in research publishing: timeliness and openness. Journal publications often take months or in some cases, more than a year to be published , and the majority of research remains behind paywalls . Despite decades of initiatives, recent increases in Open Access publication have been achieved through costly APCs, effectively excluding those unable to afford publishing fees. Moreover, even if research funders are willing to overpay and accept a system that locks out those who can’t, at the current rate of change it will take 70 years to see the big five publishers flip their journals to fully Open Access. Urgent global problems do not work on this timescale.

This is not just a problem for researchers. Globally $1 trillion per year is spent on research ; investment which supports the pursuit of all kinds of human social and economic progress. Concerns about the inability of our current publishing systems to adequately share the results of this investment should be a higher political priority .

Why the focus on “preprint servers”?

Preprint servers offer a no-frills, low-cost digital publishing platform where authors can upload their work before formal peer review. Many scientific disciplines have used preprint servers for decades and their use has grown rapidly in recent years, partly due to the  COVID-19 pandemic, when immediate access to information became paramount. Publishing in this way offers immediate, full, open access to research results, though it does not typically include a quality assessment step.

While peer review remains important for ensuring quality, there are many issues with the current model and there is much innovation in approaches to peer review already underway. Focusing publication requirements on preprint servers creates space for innovation in peer review or other quality assessment and curation models. It will be important for funders to monitor research quality and invest in mechanisms for ensuring research integrity.

Today, print copies of research papers are increasingly rare, begging a change to the label of “preprint server”. Nevertheless, low-cost digital publishing platforms must be key to major reform of research publishing and funders are also beginning to view preprints as valid indicators of research .

Implications for researchers and research users

Researchers will be able to quickly and easily share the results of their work, without the traditional gatekeepers. However, in the current prestige economy, some may still feel pressure to publish in traditional journals to meet career or funding requirements. Additionally, research funders that decline to pay APCs but require open publication may feel disadvantaged compared to peers supported by funders willing to pay APCs for publication in top-tier journals. This could also result in more paywalled journal articles forcing those who struggle with access to articles to rely on other methods. However, pursuing Open Access through pay-to-publish without controlling costs to research funders, as major recent initiatives effectively did, does not solve any of these issues.

The major benefits of preprint servers to research users are quick and cost-free access to new research. However, the lack of quality assessment in pre-prints is a potential drawback. Innovation in open quality assessment will be needed to address this challenge and complement the shift towards preprint-centric Open Access policies.

Recommendations

Political leaders:.

• Recognise that systems for sharing the results of significant research investment are dysfunctional and consider whether efforts to drive innovation in the sector are worth backing .

Research funders:

• Consider requiring preprints and ceasing to pay for APCs to promote equitable publishing practices.
• Invest this funding into models that benefit the whole ecosystem and not individual funded researchers.
• Support innovative initiatives that facilitate peer review and curation separately from traditional publication.
• Value research output based on its merits, rather than the perceived prestige of the publishing platform.

Researchers:

• Consider alternative Open Access publishing models to promote equitable access to research.
• Peer review for journals whose values match your own—where you give your labour and work for free matters.
• Advocate for more research funders to adopt preprint-centric Open Access policies.
• Value peer-reviewed research on its merits, rather than the perceived prestige of the publishing platform.

As we navigate this new era in the Open Access movement, a willingness to embrace change and new ways of working among research funders, researchers, and research users will be crucial to advancing equity and innovation in research publishing. Let us take bold action to try something different and adapt as needed. Let us embrace this opportunity to create a more inclusive and impactful research ecosystem for the benefit of all.

Thanks to Ashley Farley and Javier Guzman for feedback on an earlier draft.

CGD blog posts reflect the views of the authors, drawing on prior research and experience in their areas of expertise. CGD is a nonpartisan, independent organization and does not take institutional positions.

View the discussion thread.

More Reading

Ideas to action: independent research for global prosperity

© 2024 Center for Global Development | Privacy Notice and Cookie Policy

Sign up to get weekly development updates:

An official website of the United States government

Here’s how you know

Official websites use .gov A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS A lock ( Lock A locked padlock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

• Science and Technology Directorate
• Feature Article: New Geo-Tracking Buoys Live Test Events

Feature Article: New Geo-Tracking Buoys Make a Splash During Live Test Events

New rugged buoy technologies equipped with Automatic Identification Systems aim to help the U.S. Coast Guard mark and track objects in the water.

Recent years have seen an uptick in the use of geo-tracking technology, which has become so widespread and affordable that we are able to attach small trackers to car keys or luggage to find them with our smartphones. The Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is working with the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) to develop buoys with improved geo-tracking technology for mission specific field use.

Instead of looking for car keys, USCG crews can use this technology to find and mark critical locations or objects in the water using buoys deployed from air or surface vessels. These could include stranded boats, contraband, or hazardous waste that are required to be reidentified after initial search and rescue or interdiction efforts are complete. The two new buoy systems, created by S&T industry partners, are moving into the final round of testing this year after successfully completing functional tests in 2023.

Building a Better Buoy

The USCG handles thousands of cases each year , each potentially involving the deployment of numerous supporting assets necessary to complete those missions. After the initial response efforts, ocean currents and associated weather conditions can carry away watercraft or other manmade materials from the original incident site. This presents a challenge for USCG crews since those materials left behind can become navigation hazards in busy shipping lanes or involve illegal goods. During a drug interdiction, for example, suspects will often throw contraband overboard while fleeing. Determining where these illegal materials are located is an essential part of gathering evidence and protecting the nation’s coasts; therefore, finding them quickly is key.

“The availability of accurate, real-time geo-position data is critical in verifying the drift and motion of items of interest and assisting in the planning of a search and rescue or other response mission,” said Edwin Thiedeman of the USCG Office of C4 & Sensors Capabilities.

“S&T is working closely with the vendors, USCG subject matter experts, and operators to deliver more capable buoys to support multiple USCG missions. These new improved buoys will provide the USCG with much improved accuracy and reliability to execute their important maritime missions,” stated Ron McNeal, S&T Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP) transition director.

While the USCG currently has geo-tracking buoys, the existing systems do not have a secondary locator that is visible at sea level day and night in case of geo-tracking failure. The existing systems are not reusable or rechargeable, so they have to be replaced frequently, representing a significant cost and a potential loss in data. S&T’s SVIP put out a call to industry through the Maritime Object Tracking Technology (MOTT) solicitation for rugged geo-tracking buoys that could be quickly deployed from both air and surface vessels traveling at high speeds. The buoys needed to transmit Automatic Identification System (AIS) and Global Positioning System (GPS) data, which large ships use to share and receive location data while traversing the world’s waterways. Having AIS/GPS capabilities built into the buoy helps ensure USCG crews would be able to quickly pick up signals using their existing communications equipment.

“The ability to link small innovative businesses directly with the government to provide new technologies to fit government needs has a wide range of benefits for all parties. With all of this in mind, MOTT’s goal was to find a start-up company with a new or existing buoy system that could be tailored to the USCG’s needs, resulting in more efficient technology transition and acquisition processes,“ said CDR Rebecca Fosha, deputy of the USCG Research, Development, Test & Evaluation and Innovation Program .

Following the solicitation’s initial launch in March 2020, SVIP awarded funds to two companies: Kenautics, Inc. and Morcom International, Inc . Each business had an existing system they could adapt to the USCG’s requirements: the Kenautics Global Positioning System AIS Navigation and Tracking Buoy and the Morcom Tracking Unit for Navigational Aid. Both companies reached Phase 3 of the SVIP funding lifecycle in 2023, which required functional tests in a real-world setting.

“Startups typically don’t have the human or financial capital to champion large R&D projects,” said Melissa Oh, SVIP managing director. “Using the SVIP phased approach, we are quickly able to assess if a technology will have the ability to respond to the given need and transition the technology to the operators on a timeline that allows smaller businesses to be competitive.”

Go For Test Launch

In August and November 2023, staff from SVIP and the USCG Research, Development, Test & Evaluation and Innovation Program traveled to USCG Base Elizabeth City, North Carolina, to conduct separate test runs for each of the new MOTT buoys. The tests focused on how the buoys operated when dropped from different altitudes and velocities, which involved deploying the systems from an MH-60T helicopter and an HC-130J fixed wing aircraft traveling at various speeds and altitudes. Evaluators were interested in how the rugged designs held up upon impact, given that one version of the buoy has a parachute and the other does not.

It was also important to see whether the buoys successfully continued to function when they impacted the water, while at the same time determining whether the buoy went too deep under the surface of the water. Going too deep underwater could risk the system striking the bottom, where it might potentially get stuck or malfunction once it resurfaced. Participants conducted 10 drops over the course of four days, which provided valuable feedback on improvements that Kenautics and Morcom International can incorporate into the next version of their prototypes.

“It was important to test the buoys in a realistic, operational environment—in this case Base Elizabeth City—to evaluate the structure, functions, and software integrity. Observation from USCG personnel and the companies provided valuable feedback to modify the buoys’ performance to better fit USCG missions,” noted Jason Pharr from the Tactical/Navigation Program Office in the Engineering Support Branch of the USCG Aviation Logistics Center.

In addition to testing the buoys’ ability to withstand water impact, S&T and USCG staff also evaluated their battery life and cybersecurity. Rechargeable batteries are one of the design components that will help make the new buoys more cost effective than current models, so it was important to see how long they could operate in an open ocean environment.

Test sessions were conducted over several flights lasting approximately two hours for each sortie, which gave a realistic scenario of how long it might take USCG crews to return to an incident site once conditions were safe. During operational deployment, the buoys utilized strobe lights, radio beacons and transmitted AIS information approximately every 10 minutes so crews could pick up the signals on both visual and radio frequency scanners. Separate from the drop tests but related to the buoys’ communications capabilities, S&T also conducted Red Team testing with a third party to determine whether there were any cybersecurity issues for either system. The goal was to see whether the buoy signals could be vulnerable to detection or hacking by civilian systems, since this could represent a potential risk.

The Next Wave

Last year’s Phase 3 test sessions provided critical insight into how the MOTT buoys could be improved moving forward. The next rounds of operational evaluations are scheduled to take place later in 2024. The MOTT buoy is one of S&T’s joint projects between S&T and the USCG through SVIP, which also includes a Language Translation device that operates offline in a zero-connectivity environment. These systems could potentially join a growing list of solutions that empower our nation’s homeland security operations while promoting more efficient technology transition-to-market.

For additional information about S&T’s maritime security work and the SVIP program, contact [email protected] .

• Science and Technology
• U.S. Coast Guard (USCG)