Introduction
The monumental importance of the product/service development process in the world today has been a fundamental concern not only for business personnel; but also for a wide range of organizations whose ultimate success greatly depends on it. Notably, over the recent past, there has been an increasing popularity of this process based on the inherent need and pressure for organizations to constantly innovate new products and services.
This is vitally necessary for them to stay relevant to their clients while having an advantage in today’s globally competitive market. The product/service development process is a highly intricate and involving process that requires several factors to be keenly observed.
However, Vonderembse (2010) authoritatively opines that amongst all the fundamental factors, customer involvement in the product development process is the most essential one since it significantly determines the acceptance or rejection of a particular product or service in its targeted markets.
Preliminarily, any product development process should ensure that it utilizes price friendly materials while ensuring the creation of a good product or service with exceptional functionality, high quality, market appeal and importantly; cost effectiveness.
More business (2006) however interestingly notes that “Price can be a business killer to compete on, because someone’s always able to do it cheaper than you” and consequently; it is vital for organizations to nurture an environment that allows for adequate customer involvement in the design process.
This will in turn open a vista of opportunities for the organization to know how to exactly tailor their products in a way that appeals to their clients. According to Ciccantelli and Magidson (2006), the most common ways of customer involvement include the use of product-design focus groups, questionnaires and surveys; which have reportedly been able to offer a good number of benefits and a few losses (depending on organizational implementation) as discussed below.
Discussion (Dissertation)
In spite of the amassed immense values of involving customers in the design process; some business experts and analysts have been in strong opposition to this. To them, this involvement offers more demerits than merits thus should be avoided at all costs.
According to Ciccantelli and Magidson (2006), effectiveness is measured by the ability of a product to provide what the consumers want, rather than just doing away with what they do not want. So the imperative question to ask at this point is; is it effective to involve consumers in the design process? Well, the answer here can go either ways; both yes and no—depending on how one looks at it.
Starting with the yes, it is inherent to primarily note that new products/service development and the involvement of customers is not just practiced in the UK and USA alone; it is also extensively in other parts of the world with lots of benefits realized through it (Ishmael and Namiranian, 2003). This in itself is a strong indicator that customer involvement in the innovative design of new products is an effectively vital component of any business.
Additionally, Ciccantelli and Magidson (2006) say that “Involving consumers in designing products and services can put the organization back in touch with its consumers and infuse fresh ideas.”
This is principally based on the fact that getting genuine ideas from clients helps in knowing what they want thus incepting products and services that aptly suits their needs. Ishmael and Namiranian (2003) support this point by articulating that proper sieving of ideas from many people increases the probability of getting invaluable ideas that can help in positively propelling any given organization.
Moreover, the involvement of consumers in the design process helps in avoiding extra-costs that are usually incurred through repair of products as a result of less or no customer consultation in the product innovation design process (Vonderembse, 2010).
Furthermore, adequate consumer involvement in the design process facilitates its smooth running hence saving a lot of time that can be used for other vital organizational functions (Vonderembse, 2010). In relation to this, Vonderembse adds that the use of pertinent information and technologies together with adequate consumer involvement can also greatly accentuate the product/service development process thus saving even more time for the organization.
Finally, consumer involvement plays a fundamental role in the prototype design and testing part of the product/design process. This is very important since the consumer reaction to the product/service—in most cases—represents how the clients will eventually react in the real world market (Ishmael and Namiranian, 2003).
Vonderembse (2010) exemplifies effective company involvement of consumers in product/service development by citing IBM who managed to smashingly slice the assembly time of their printers from 30 minutes to 3 minutes. He additionally talks of the Texas instruments company who, through customer involvement in the design process, managed to incorporate the DFMA software which immensely improved their infrared sighting mechanism services.
Mynampati (2000), an advisory architect at IBM, also illustrates how the involvement of consumers in the architectural design of services has been able to improve the efficiency of the company. This was most notable with the implementation of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) by the business and IT section of the company. By involving clients in SOA implementation, the company revenues shot sky-high, in contrast to the previous inceptions that did not involve consumers.
On the flipside, those opposed to effectiveness of customer involvement in the product/service design process argue that: Firstly, determining what consumers need through customer involvement does not necessarily translate to success. This is generally because most consumer needs are elusive thus not being able to sufficiently project what should be done during the design process (Ciccantelli and Magidson, 2006).
Secondly, Ishmael and Namiranian (2003) argue that most organizations tend to get so engrossed in the innovation of new products through customer involvement to the point of getting sidetracked from other important organizational duties. In turn, this increases the likelihood of less performance of such organizations.
Thirdly, involvement of a wide range of consumers consumes a lot of time and resources—which would have otherwise been used for other significant organizational duties like marketing and advertisement among many others (Ishmael & Namiranian, 2003).
Fourthly and lastly, most of the methods used for sampling views and ideas from consumers tend to limit them to talk in certain ways that limit objectivity.
As a result, most ideas elicited from such people are inclined towards what the organizations want to hear rather than what the consumers really want to say. This further leads to development of products/services that do not necessarily represent what most consumers really want (Ciccantelli and Magidson, 2006). There are many examples of failed product/service development processes.
According to most business analysts, the most pronounced one organizational failure, was the economic hiccup of 2008 that led to the momentarily slump of the Dell computer company.
Having “blindly” followed the consumer prospected ideas, the company decided to increase the production and supply number of their computers while ignoring important factors on the ground like the global economic meltdown at the time. As a result, many computers were produced and distributed while very few of them were bought. This led to huge losses especially with their further undoing of not incorporating recent technologies that were priority to most consumers.
So in order for there to be continuity in the beneficial use of consumer involvement in the design process, it is fundamental to circumspectly review the new product/service development process then through it; organizations will be able to analyze how to get the right informational input and policies which –in turn—deals with the aforementioned challenges.
Different organizations have different notions of the new product development process. This is the reason why its stages can be summarized as five stages or as many as eight stages depending on factors like: organizational structure, leadership and social cohesion. However, Mayo and Hausler (2010) authoritatively give a 7-stepped model which is widely accepted as the most representative model of the new product/service development process. These seven steps are as follows:
First is the idea generation which is done through methods like brainstorming, interviews or even questionnaires which are given to the relevant audiences. Second, there is idea screening. Here, the ideas are partially reviewed and sieved so that only important ones go to the next stage.
The remaining ones are kept for future references. Third in this hierarchy is concept development and testing. At this point, ideas are molded into tangible concepts in relations to the organizational policies and goals. Fourth, there is the business analysis stage where the concepts from the previous stage are analyzed. The fifth stage involves prototype development; This greatly requires consumer involvement so as to develop something that would be viable in a real market.
The sixth stage in turn involves market tests of the prototype which greatly projects how the product would perform in the market. Seventh and lastly, we have the commercialization and pricing of the product. This is only done if the product or service passes the market test.
Recommendations
In relations to the above process, some of the ways to outsource good ideas, solve the aforementioned challenges and ensure efficient management of consumer involvement in the design process include; incorporating professionals in the idea generation part. This will greatly limit the chances of wrong ideas ending up in the product/service development pipeline.
In addition, more accommodative and objective methods should be used to sample consumer views. According to Ciccantelli and Magidson (2006), one of such ways is the consumer idealized design developed by Russell L. Ackoff. In this process, potential consumers get to talk in an unconstrained environment about what would be an ideal product or service to them.
Mayo and Hausler (2010) propose for the establishment of a cumulative plan for a given number of projects. The logic of this is to have a cut-across plan for various projects and thus knowing how to easily go about them. In effect, there will be more order in the organization and thus facilitating smooth running of the projects. This also ensures and orderly involvement of consumers in offering their input which consequently ensures saving of time.
Again, Ciccantelli and Magidson (2006) propose early the incorporation of consumers in the design process. This will hugely eliminate the chances of having to make costly changes towards the end of the product/service development cycle.
As a personal recommendation, organizations can increase the number of opinion-sampling techniques like use of questionnaires, interview and surveys. This makes it relatively easy to get increased input and active involvement of consumers in the product and service development process.
Conclusion
In finality, it is invaluable to remember that customer involvement in product/service design is a wide concept with many facets. Consequently, each facet should be thoroughly put into consideration whenever viewing it.
Additionally, there previous notion of customer purchase being primarily based on price and quality has been faced out with clients who look into other factors like: product/service design, its customizability, its safety, longevity, efficiency and cost of maintenance among many others (Vonderembse, 2010). It is therefore fundamental not to just concentrate on consumer involvement in the innovation or development of product/services; but also remember other factors (like the ones abovementioned).
References
Ciccantelli, S. and Magidson, J. (2006) Consumer idealized design: Involving consumers in the product development process. Club of Amsterdam Blog, Feb. 2008, p. 6.
Ishmael, G. and Namiranian, L. (2003) Using consumers to fuel your new product generation a pipeline: The role of idea-centric creativity. Decision Analyst, Vol 16 (5), p. 96.
Mayo, C. M. and Hausler, D. (2010) New product development. Reference for business, Vol 7 (1), pp. 14-18.
More business (2006) New product development process: Steps to develop new products and services. Web.
Vonderembse, M. (2010) Product design. Reference for business, 87 (1), pp. 34-38.