Every company needs to innovate to survive. This means constantly enhancing existing products and services, and developing new ones – all to drive revenue and profits, to illustrate a market leadership position, and to stay ahead of the competition.
A new white paper by Julia Cupman can be viewed on this subject at https://www.b2binternational.com/publications/white-papers/product-development-research/
Three key takeaways that are drawn from this paper include the following:
Market research can unleash new ideas and opportunities for product development. It has been said that 80% of industrial innovations have come from customers themselves. Companies that do not actively listen to the market could, therefore, be ignoring unmet needs and closing their ears to new product opportunities.
Market research can help you maximize revenues of a product or service. Market research need not cover only product enhancements or new product development. Market research can provide answers on the size of the market, its growth prospects, the distribution channels, optimum pricing, and factors influencing the purchasing decision.
Market research provides insurance, reducing business risk. After apparently not having conducted market research, FedEx lost $340 million on a new Zap mail offering, and DuPont lost an estimated $100 million on a new synthetic leather product, Corfam. In order to avoid embarrassing and costly mistakes such as these, it’s understandable why so many companies turn to disciplined market research to test and validate concepts and prototypes prior to new product launch.
