An important aspect of the product or service marketing is product (or service) design and development planning. In order for the company to stage a competitive and fruitful marketing for its products or services, a product or service plan must be put in place to match will the particular target market that the company intends to serve (Kotler & Keller, 127).
The failure of proper planning of the product or service can spell doom to the company’s efforts. Very often we have seen products and services being introduced, but been withdrawn from the market all just because of a poor product design and development phase.
Product design refers to the sum total of actions involved in creating and styling the look and feel of the product itself, it also involves making decisions on the product’s mechanical compositions and actual technical composition. Furthermore the product design involves selecting various materials and all relevant processes, together with various constituents that are necessary to make the product appealing to the consumer.
On the other hand product Development is a term used to collectively explain the whole process of pointing out a market opportunity, creating a product that is highly attractive to the identified market segment, testing the product itself making necessary modifications, until it is ready for production.
The two go hand in hand and complement each other. If this process is well undertaken, it is more probable that the product or service will succeed in the market (West, Ford & Ibrahim 36).
The product development plan will tell the consumer the purpose of bringing a new product or service into the market and the necessary marketing strategy that the company intends to follow in order to achieve this purpose as far as the product is concerned.
It also tells the company about target market at the same time it tells you the marketing weapons you’ll employ to designing innovative new products. Therefore, reducing risks and uncertainties for the organization, this would otherwise have put the organization in a more risky situation.
The development and design plan will explain to the relevant stakeholders the amount of work that remains to launch the company products, what factors need to come together to make our concept work, and what the company is doing to bring them together.
The company therefore tries to explain how installs systems to define measure, analyze, implement control the processes of producing products in proper time for consumption and in the best quality. The process of product design and development belongs to the marketing, design and manufacturing departments, and therefore demands for cooperation and a lot of interaction between different divisions in the organization.
The product (or Service) design and development plan will handle the issues of product quality, value, and time that will take to roll out the product or service and all relevant costs and incorporate them to achieve an equilibrium in the process of coming up with the product or service.
When customers purchase Wormtech product they expect accurate delivery and quality that guarantees satisfaction. While Wormtech as an organization ensures that its product design costs are low but the end product quality is high, therefore systems to ensure innovativeness and quality management must be put in place that ensures the intended goals are achieved (Doyle & Stern, 108).
Wormtech designs and tests its Agro worm products with the Soil Food Institute and Southern Cross University, Environmental Analysis Laboratory to deliver to its consumers the best possible environmentally friendly organic soil improving fertilizers.
The process of development and design takes place between Wormtech and other division whom use latest technologies to make its product. Research and analysis costs money but Wormtech finds this necessary for its consumers who consists of schools, clubs, farmers, water companies, and other fertilizer manufacturers.
The process of developing and designing products and services in Wormtech aims to produce organic fertilizers and other products that ensure, organic and all natural environmentally friendly products that restore soil and plant health, and at the same time de- toxify soil increasing soil fertility and increase resistance to pest attacks.
Such products are further designed to increase resistance to disease for stronger plant growth increased flowering and water holding capacity of soil by up to 30%use on any plant.
The new Agro worm product will be enriched with microbes, ferments, enzymes, vitamins and other biologically dynamic constituents that are vital to promote healthy plants. It will be abundant in essential nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and other elements which assist in promoting healthy growth in plants.
Agro worm is known to have an elevated organic content that helps to develop nutrients and enhance moisture retention of the soil, thus improving drainage and water-holding ability, thus an excellent option for potted plants such as flowers, small fruits trees and other plants. Agro worm also helps produce disease and pest resistant plants.
A good research and design process of Wormtech should consider the following when designing and developing products:
- Customize the needs of the customer;
- Identify the concepts that should go into the design and development of the product;
- Ensure the employees are relevant and up to date with the current technology;
- The design should aim at optimizing on manufacturing output; and
- Validates the product
The customer should always be at the center of the product design and development process a business that puts other objectives ahead of the customer needs and wants may most likely fail in this process of designing products and services.
The human resource division should strive to recruit highly talented individuals that will foster technological advancements that are ahead of their time. At the same time product and service development planning software can be used to create schedules that are accurate and optimal (Otto & Wood 35).
A good or a service can be generally categorized as either market-pull product or technology-push product. In the instance of a market-pull product, the marketing division of an organization is assigned with the task of coming up with a convincing argument that that a given good or service would sale properly if it was designed to attract to a well designed segment of its target market.
The product design department is then given a go ahead to determine the likelihood that it can technically match the expected consumer standards with the new product. This is the total opposite when it comes to technology-push product.
When a technical advancement opens the way for a new product, marketing division tries to determine the idea’s prospects in the marketplace if good then the company pursues the marketing opportunity if unsuitable then the marketing department makes recommendations to the concerned divisions to make changes (Belair 41, Trott 105).
Many are times that the technical department may not outright come up with a totally new and different new product. Consequently Marketers take up the enormous task of brainstorming and packaging the product in the way greatest way possible get the maximum attention of its customers.
After all these it then becomes the burden of the manufacturing department to come up with figures that will estimate the total amount of financial resources that will be required to manufacture the product which often comes in handy when creating profoma financial statements.
After performing the economic analysis and knowing the product potential precise quantitative terms. The involved divisions should therefore prepare detailed development blueprint and reports which include a list of incremental activities, and those responsible for handling these incremental tasks and the necessary resources and expenses that will be required to release the product/service.
After which development schedule that is time specific is formulated and sent to different departments so that each department can use it to evaluate and control the entire process to achieve suitable results and implement changes if necessary.
It is therefore necessary to prioritize development project and not to overstretch resources, identifying the project staffing requirements plan development resource requirements allocate and manage resources use modular design approach.
Standardizing parts and material firmly synchronize development activities learn to work with partial information and at the same time organize to release the product early enough and involve subcontractors and suppliers in the development plan.
Coordinate production requirements resolve production problems quickly and create comprehensive, realistic project plan balance testing and time-to-market to come up with a real and feasible time frame of delivering the product from the top of the chain to the consumer.
Fig. 1: Product design diagram
Works cited
Belair, Georgette. Implementing Design for Six SIGMA: A Leader’s Guide: Getting the Most from Your Product Development. Milwaukee: ASQ Quality Press, 2006. Print.
Doyle, Peter & Stern Phillip. Marketing Management and Strategy, 4 edition. New York, NY: Prentice Hall, 2006. Print.
Kotler, Phillip & Keller, Kevin. Marketing Management (13 edition). New York, NY: Prentice Hall, 2006. Print.
Otto, Kevin & Wood Kristin. Product design: techniques in reverse engineering and new product development. New York: Prentice Hall, 2001. Print.
Trott, Paul. Innovation Management and New Product Development, 4 edition. Essex: Pearson, 2008. Print.
West, Douglas, Ford, John & Ibrahim, Essam. Strategic Marketing: Creating Competitive Advantage, 2 edition. New York: Oxford, 2010. Print.