Assignment:
As stated in Stadelman, William & Cotteril, Owen J (1995), product managers who screen product ideas to be developed into products, pretty much follow the following sequence:
An 'expert' team analyzes the ideas from technological, manufacturability, and Voice of the Customer standpoints (VOC includes web site claims and reports from the sales-force and technical assistance staff).
The ideas that pass 'expert judgment' in terms of technology, manufacturability and compliance to Expressed Customer Needs go thru additional technical analysis by the product development department. If the PD Dept. states that - yes, the idea is feasible from a technical standpoint, - then the product concepts are analyzed in terms of economics (costs to make the product and investments required).
In parallel, a market analysis is done: unit sales to be expected in how many years and at what price.
Finally, the financials are calculated and priority ranking is done based on those parameters. It is very important to use multiple criteria because the highest NPVs will overcome the others. This is risky due to NPV Volatility. In other words, the bigger developments will throw out the smaller ones, but because they are bigger, they are also more difficult to sell, hence the higher NPVs found in larger projects are inherently more volatile than for smaller developments.
Show how market(ing) research can be used to assist the use of any 2 of the following new product evaluation tools:
Compliance to Expressed Customer Needs/Claims (Y/N)
Fit with Strategic Imperatives (Y/N)
Feasibility of development concept (H/M/L)
Manufacturability (Y/N)
Time to develop the engineered concept (H/M/L)
Needs for Qualified Internal Resources (H/M/L/N)
Needs for Plant & Equipment (P&E) Investments (H/M/L/N)
Expected Contribution Margin (H/M/L)
Net Present Value (NPV)
NPV Volatility Estimate (H/L)
Internal Rate of Return
Payback time
Use the Yahoo and Google search engines to find new product ideas to demonstrate the marketing research concepts and frameworks for analysis.