Product Innovation and Management Assignment 3 PDF

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MKTG1270 Product Innovation and Management Assignment 3: Final Individual AssignmentSubmitted by: RMIT ID: Total Word Count (Excluding Cover Page, and References): 1 897Turnitin Report:Agile NPD and theRole of Digital ToolsOctober 2021Nevertheless, completing product development initiatives remains ...

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MKTG1270 Product Innovation and Management Assignment 3: Final Individual Assignment Submitted by: RMIT ID: Total Word Count (Excluding Cover Page, and References): 1897

Turnitin Report:

Agile NPD and the Role of Digital Tools

In today's global economy, due to the fierce competition, consumer demands for highly functional and high-quality products, shorter delivery lead times, and improved environmental friendliness are all required, all at a fair cost. The use of technologies is one of the most important tools companies can adopt in order to advance and improve in today's technologically advanced society. To add to the essentiality of technology, with COVID-19 preventing people to have face-to-face contact, making it harder to work personally with each other, it is even more essential that companies are able to quickly adapt to the fast-paced changes in the world so that they are able to face any sort of calamity in the long run. Advances in technology can assist in solving some of these problems but advanced design approaches are critical since most of a product's design and manufacturing features are influenced by early design decisions, but technology can also provide guidance. (Varl, M., Duhovnik, J. and Tavčar, J., 2020).

Innovation Challenges faced during Post COVID-19 In light of COVID-19, many companies find it more difficult to operate as they did previously. As the post-COVID economy unfolds, firms will face many challenges when it comes to product innovation. Identifying such strategic opportunities and areas, developing attractive new items, and releasing them at a reasonable price will be one of the challenges. In addition to putting a lot of pressure on development and humanitarian organizations, COVID-19 offers creative opportunities. Nonetheless, this potential has largely gone unexplored. Many organizations have put in place processes and systems that allow them to 'stick to the

basics' rather than evaluate and alter established business models and practices. A number of ways have been developed by the development community to address the concerns of urgency and uncertainty. The next step is to identify and manage failures. It requires a risk-taking approach, wagering, and hedging between success and failure. The future success of ideas, teams, groups and networks can be difficult to predict. It is important to accept the fact that innovation initiatives fail even when funding is adequate (Ramalingam, B. and Prabhu, J., 2020). Next, there is a possibility that COVID-19 will affect consumer purchasing behaviour, and companies should forecast how long some or all of these changes might last. Bringing awareness to behaviour changes was a key step for retailers and product manufacturers. It was important to understand how those changes affected future customer behaviour. As far as products are concerned, it appears that the current concept of innovation is inadequate.

SMEs and Product Innovations For Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) businesses alike, new product development (NPD) is critical. Despite its relevance to the economy, the NPD in SMEs continues to face hurdles. Because the NPD process is linked to product success, the ability to build their own NPD approach is essential for SMEs. Product development is a prerequisite for success at any company. In order for a business to grow and remain sustainable, NPD and commercialization provide a competitive advantage.

Nevertheless, completing product development initiatives remains a challenge. Product development is a critical success factor for NPD based on previous research. In other words, NPD refers to the process of turning a product idea into a commercial product. (Iqbal, M. and Suzianti, A., 2021.)

Innovation Strategies for SMEs How can SMEs improve their competitiveness by implementing innovative strategies that capitalize on their strengths while minimizing their weaknesses in comparison to larger companies? Rather than fighting with huge corporations, these techniques may involve cooperating with them. Prior to achieving the goal, we must acknowledge that one set of recommendations cannot address all the needs of SMEs due to their distinct characteristics and circumstances. Furthermore, there are several types of innovation that can be employed for different objectives at different times. While there is no one excellent approach for all SMEs, different levels and types of innovation in products, processes, and services may be acceptable for SMEs in different sectors or stages of the product lifecycle. In addition, we can't discuss SMEs and innovation without acknowledging that they differ from large firms, and the majority of existing research indicates that SMEs resemble firms of the same size.

Based on these criteria, we examine SME innovation methods that take advantage of a company's current skills while also helping them develop potentially valuable new ones. The SME market should explore non-size-dependent innovation initiatives in manufacturing and marketing. Process innovation can help SMEs improve the capability of their manufacturing processes or supply chain activities. These innovations are created for their own use, and they are customized to suit specific applications using inhouse engineering. SMEs can also offer new products into existing or new markets. New functionality, improved performance, and extra features to current products are all examples of product innovation. (Susman, G., Warren, A., Ding, M. and Stites, J.P., 2006)

New capabilities and culture of innovating firms Innovation and digitalization are critical factors in business development. Developing a culture of innovation is crucial for the development of more innovative methods, raising profitability, boosting employee engagement, and improving your company's health in general. Companies spend significant amounts of money on product development and service development. A firm's innovation culture may not be sufficiently developed, leading to failed innovation strategies.

Innovative cultures cultivate the conditions that encourage unorthodox thinking and its application. Diversity in businesses' managerial, organizational, and technological skills is recognized and presented as a factor explaining variances in enterprises' profitability, performance, and growth in the evolutionary economics literature. Excellent firms engage in and cultivate this capability, which allows them to carry out effective innovation

processes that result in new products, services, and processes, as well as improved corporate performance. (Lawson, B. and Samson, D., 2001). An innovation culture can be summarized as a collection of factors, such as strategy, value systems, management structures, internal processes, team compositions, and internal communication. How managers manage risks, resources, and possible unforeseen obstacles also influence results.

Stage-Gate

Traditional Stage-Gate

Agile Stage-Gate

Agile production: the transition from traditional production An idea is transformed into a new product through the use of a Stage-Gate System. Many companies have relied on traditional gated processes, such as Stage-Gate, to quickly develop desirable new products and launch them at a low cost. Traditional gated NPD procedures, on the other hand, are no longer viable for many of today's fast-paced development projects, necessitating the development of more agile, fluid, and flexible solutions, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses. Agile production Stage gates aim to deliver a working product, albeit not a finished product for distribution. Using this method, the company can solicit feedback from customers and users much more frequently and quickly than with a traditional Stage-Gate approach, allowing the company to focus on what matters most to them and respond rapidly to market changes. The difference between the traditional Stage-Gate and the Agile Stage-Gate includes the process: Teams follow traditional Scrum practices including daily board meetings, a backlog on which to work, burndown charts, and other elements. Typically, project teams focus only on one project and share a workspace. The critical importance of speed implies that Agile Stage-Gate teams must be entirely focused on the project at hand. Gantt charts are often used by project managers to visualize their plans and are rarely predefined; the plan is often shaped as it moves through the various sprints within a stage. (Cooper, R. G., 2021)

Management actions for NPD New resources and skills for product development should be developed as needed by firms. To carry out market assessment studies, test products, and present items effectively, firms must have the right marketing research, salesforce, distribution, advertising, and promotional resources and talents. Moreover, technical resources and abilities are correlated with technical activity proficiency. The ability to perform technical evaluations, design products, and manufacture things is linked to having sufficient research and development and engineering resources and capabilities. The success of new products is similarly linked to marketing and technical expertise. Technical knowledge appears to have a higher link to new product success than marketing knowledge. Following that, gather and analyse market and competitor data to evaluate customers' wants, needs, and specifications for the product; price sensitivity; buying decisions; and competitors' tactics, strengths, and weaknesses. (Calantone, R.J., Schmidt, J.B. and Song, X.M., 1996.)

Digital tools and their use in product innovation Organizations can use digital technologies to increase their innovation and obtain a better understanding of their customers. Companies are investing in digital technologies such as project management and computer-aided design software, and many of them use them to enhance productivity by accelerating product design and development. These tools are essential; businesses that do not use them effectively will suffer from a performance lag. Companies can communicate with their customers earlier than ever before thanks to digital tools. In addition, some companies are adding digital feedback

loops into their products in order to better understand how customers use them and, as a result, enhance them. (Jaruzelski, B., 2015.)

How to adopt and use digital tools that help ensure the voice of the consumer In order to develop and design successful products, businesses need to collect and examine their customers' collective preferences. It's critical to understand why customers require the product, what the product can accomplish for them, and what they're seeking for. Digital tools such as online customer surveys, enables companies to better understand their customers and address their concerns. Additionally, offering live chat on your website is a great way to collect customer feedback in real-time. You reduce the probability that your customers will feel unsatisfied as well. In addition to a chat service and online surveys, you can collect this data by analysing the website behaviour of your customers. It can be done by using tools like heat maps, scrolls, and visitor records to accomplish this. Finally, the company's online reputation isn't just determined by your efforts; reviews and publicity are all included among what creates your online reputation. (Sharma, R., 2021.)

The development and implementation of an NPD process that is agile and lean Companies will have to invest time in designing and constructing an infrastructure to support their product and service, as well as hiring individuals who will be held to stringent performance standards in order to develop and promote the product swiftly. Before they begin working on product development, they must build an acceptable risk management framework and have mitigation mechanisms in place. Companies should also implement a risk management strategy that allows external partners to assume the majority of risk or provides a buffer for them. Next, companies should improve client interactions given the high volatility and low customer loyalty of the current market. Also, make sure to create not only the product, but the processes that go along with it before, during, and after the sale. And lastly, make sure that companies apply the most efficient development measures with the lowest resources and the shortest time periods.

Product Innovation Success Traditionally, the success of a new product has been judged solely in financial terms. While one of the most easily quantifiable industrial indicators is financial return, it is far from the only one that matters. A new product, for example, may have a modest financial return but be seen as a huge success because it changed the market, introduced a new technology to the industry, or presented the company with a new window of opportunity. (Cooper, R.G. and Kleinschmidt, E.J., 1987)

References Calantone, R.J., Schmidt, J.B. and Song, X.M., 1996. Controllable factors of new product success: A cross-national comparison. Marketing Science, 15(4), pp.341-358. Cooper, R. G., 2021,. What is an agile stage-gate? Planisware., From: https://www.planisware.com/hub/blog/what-agile-stage-gate. Cooper, R.G. and Kleinschmidt, E.J., 1987. Success factors in product innovation. Industrial marketing management, 16(3), pp.215-223. Iqbal, M. and Suzianti, A., 2021. New Product Development Process Design for Small and Medium Enterprises: A Systematic Literature Review from the Perspective of Open Innovation. Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity, 7(2), p.153. Jaruzelski, B., 2015. How digital tools are transforming innovation. Wired. From: https://www.wired.com/insights/2013/11/how-digital-tools-are-transforming-innovation/. Lawson, B. and Samson, D., 2001. Developing innovation capability in organisations: a dynamic capabilities approach. International journal of innovation management, 5(03), pp.377-400. Ramalingam, B. and Prabhu, J., 2020. Innovation, development, and COVID-19: Challenges, opportunities, and ways forward Sharma, R., 2021. 12 voices of the customer methodologies to generate a goldmine of customer feedback. HubSpot Blog. From: https://blog.hubspot.com/service/voice-of-thecustomer-methodologies. Susman, G., Warren, A., Ding, M. and Stites, J.P., 2006. Product and service innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises. Research Sponsored by United States Department of Commerce-The National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension Partnership. Varl, M., Duhovnik, J. and Tavčar, J., 2020. Agile product development process transformation to support advanced one-of-a-kind manufacturing. International Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 33(6), pp.590-608....