The Key to New Product Development

In today’s competitive market, new product development which aligns with the brand and meet market demand is key to success. A successful product not only fulfills consumer needs but also conveys the brand’s values and personality, enhancing its influence and competitiveness. MikonSupply considers the actual situation of customers during communication, and even for the same product, we differentiate through light customization. New product development is more challenging than light customization. And we’ve encountered many issues during customer communication, which we review here along with solutions.

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Difficulties of new product design

1. Developing products based on subjective assumptions alone

They may not have adequately researched the market at the beginning. And only rely on subjective thinking, personal preferences for design, which is a problem that many people will encounter.

Spend a lot of time carefully sculpted product appearance, but ignored its core functions can truly meet the consumer. The time invested in the early days are wasted after product lunched to fail

This is particularly prominent in the silicone products industry. Many suppliers have a sense of new product development, but suffer from the market feedback is less. Often easy to blindly follow the trend, or by personal preference for the design of the product. The same product will appear dozens or even hundreds of similarity to more than 90% of the product. But because of the different groups of customers, the cost and inventory control is poor, resulting in losses

2. Lack of budget planning

In terms of funding, they may not have done a good job of detailed budget planning. Constantly investing too much money in some unnecessary details, such as excessive pursuit of luxury packaging and ignoring the quality of the product itself to improve. Or they may gamble and go all-in at the beginning, which eventually leads to a tight financial chain, not only plunging themselves into a financial crisis, but also dragging their suppliers into it.

After the new product concept is released, we will give the client a rough estimate of the cost, although this budget may not be accurate, but it will allow the client to understand the approximate cost of development of the product, and then make a good plan for the next step, so to void wasting the time of both parties. (Click here to know more about MikonSupply)

3. Lack of effective communication with suppliers

The product designed has many problems in production feasibility, but it is bent on having its own way. In order to meet their requirements, suppliers have to invest a lot of resources to make adjustments, and the cost rises sharply. Once the market response is poor, the supplier is also dragged into the quagmire and faces tremendous financial pressure.

As the old saying goes, the ideal is very rich, the reality is very bone-skinny; perfect design and manufacturing there will be a certain difference between, then we need to respect the reality, respect the production, and properly listen to the views of the supplier, in order to get the most suitable program

Case Share

we once met a customer who wanted to customize the silicone cake molds, their design has a pattern of tobacco leaves, the edge was designed as a 90-degree right-angled edge, very sharp. But the cutter machine for steel mold could not cut the right angle, we communicated with the customer for several times, and came up with a revised drawing, but the customer suspected that there was something wrong with our ability, because the other supplier he found did not have this problem, so he gave the order to another one.

But when the mold was opened, the supplier took the liberty of making the right angle edge into an R angle (the supplier may think that this is the industry practice, so he did not inform the customer). You can imagine how angry he was.

There are some conventions in some industries that people who are new to the industry may not be aware of, which may cause misunderstandings, for example, when designing a carton box, the top lid seals will be made with some cuts so that the box can be closed better.

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The info to suppliers

We can provide customers with new designs, but because we serve customers in a variety of industries, it is almost impossible to achieve proficiency in a number of industries; so in the design of new products, we can not imagine a product out of thin air, and often need customers to provide some specific information!

1. To clarify the functional requirements of the product. Detailed description of the product needs to achieve what specific functions, for example, for special populations of silicone teeth or pet teeth, because of the different users, the product material and hardness requirements are not the same.
2. Provide accurate design requirements. Including size, shape, color and other specifications, you can use similar products to express the picture of the product you want to design, or hand-drawn drawings, schematics, etc.
3. Give quality standards and testing requirements. Specify the quality level of the product (e.g. European or American standard), and the corresponding testing methods and standards, or inform the supplier of your sales market, audience customers, so that the supplier can give you some advice.

We understand that design drawings are very important information, and we will strictly protect the privacy of our customers and observe professional ethics.

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New product development Canva

Benefit from reading Ash Maurya (USA) 《RUNNING LEAN》, New product development, like starting a business, has a system to follow. It’s like you’re playing a strategy game where every step needs to be carefully planned. You can’t just blindly invest a lot of resources, but you need to design and develop new products in a better and faster way. For example, you can’t just throw all your money at an untested idea at once, but rather take small steps, trial and error, and adjust your strategy based on market feedback. Here’s the new product development canvas we’ve summarized based on Ash Maurya’s Lean Startup in Action:

Value Assumption

1. Niche Users:

Define the target niche users of the product and understand their characteristics, behavior and preferences. As I just said, we can not imagine a product out of thin air, deep-rooted in their own areas of expertise, often better able to find opportunities.

I learned of a dog leg brand, it is very interesting, is to assist dogs with leg disabilities to get back on their feet to assist the founder of the development of this product was originally intended to help his dog who lost a leg.

I believe we have all heard of the case of Coca-Cola formula change in 1975, research data more than half of the people think that Coca-Cola’s taste is heavy, choose to try a softer and sweeter new flavors, so Coca-Cola spends a lot of money to implement the new flavors of the formula, however, half of the old taste of the stickers who voted against it, is Coca-Cola’s loyal customers, the success of the defeat of the Coca-Cola, a clear definition of their target audience is very important! It’s a big market. We can’t please everybody.

2. Needs

Competitor Analysis: analyze competitors’ products and find out the differentiation advantages.

Pain points: accurately identify user pain points, such as product inconvenience, lack of functionality, etc.

Potential: Tap into the potential needs of users to provide direction for product innovation.

Product SWOT Analysis: Analyze the advantages and disadvantages of your existing products and decide whether to develop new products or reposition old products.

3. Solutions

Core Selling Points: Highlight the core selling points of the product, solve the user’s problems and meet the potential needs.

4. Costs

Make a good budget, control the development, production, transportation and marketing costs to ensure that the product price is competitive.

5. Pricing (ROI)

Develop a reasonable pricing strategy, consider return on investment

6. Core Metrics

Determine key metrics, such as conversion rate, repurchase rate, user satisfaction, market share, etc.

Growth Assumption

6. New Product Trial

prepare AB program to test the market feedback. Such as new product trial, new product launch, old customer trial, Netflix trial, etc. After get the key feedback, we can know how to improve the product, or adjust the sales strategy.

7. Customer Acquisition Channels

Develop diversified customer acquisition channels, such as online advertising, social media, Netflix, offline activities and so on.

8. Barriers

Identify obstacles that may hinder product promotion, such as quality control, low market awareness, patents. As we all know, it’s important to avoid being easily copied or surpassed in silicone industry.

Summarize: New product development needs to be considered from various aspects of value assumption and growth assumption, clarifying the target users, solving the demand, controlling the cost, analyzing the competition, etc., in order to achieve successful launch and growth.