Developing, Testing, and Launching New Products and Services

"An extremely important responsibility of the marketing group is to help the company identify new market needs and opportunities and respond to them with appropriate and effective product solutions"

Is this still the responsibility of the marketing group ? Or have companies introduced specific new product/services teams and departments ? Does this function come under commercial for example ?

Wherever the responsiblity lies, I think we all agree it is a critical function of any company if they are to survive and thrive.

With new technologies, we are all probably buying into new products and services at a much faster rate than when Kotler first wrote this sentence - but it is still true today.

Kotler uses some research to state how New Product/Service Development can be managed by companies - he gives an example of the various stages companies can go through;

• Idea Generation
• Idea Screening
• Concept Development & Testing
• Marketing Strategy Development
• Business Analysis
• Product Development
• Market Testing
• Commercialization
• The Consumer-Adoption Process

Not all ideas will pass to the next stage - so, comapnies must have a mechanism to generate enough 'Ideas' for the process to start and for the system to generate enough ideas to achieve the business objectives.

All companies, to be successful need to manage a process that works for them - this chapter is a good start point for any company. The challenge is to establish a system that is as effective as possible to help the company grow/replace products/services that reach the end of their life-cycle.

This is another chapter with relevance to today's marketers.

Marketing Strategies for the Global Marketplace

This chapter starts with a review of the American market back in the 1980's - Kotler clearly states that the American market and companies are being targeted by foreign companies and he suggests that an answer to this issue is to address competitiveness in terms of product quality & price but also to seek new markets outside of the US - sounds very familiar to today's global marketplace !

Once the decision has been made to trade outside of the home market, Kotler suggests a model to review the various steps necessary to give the company the best chance of success; this starts with an appraisal of the international market, deciding which markets to enter ("global nichemanship" may be a good option), how to enter each market, the marketing programme for each market and the marketing organisation. This is straightforward and a good model to follow for companies looking to expand their sales territories. Nothing outdated here.

Kotler's section on 'Deciding How to Enter the Market' goes into the options of; indirect export, direct exporting, licensing, joint ventures and direct investments.

One of the other key decisions marketers will need to address is the issue of 'global standardisation' or 'customisation' - to what extent will the marketing strategy be tailored for each market ? Only thorough and insightful market research and analysis, and testing, will the marketer be able to answer these questions with a high degree of confidence.

This chapter is still relevant today as it was back in the 80's - although our world has changed a lot, Kotler's approach to this business issue is very useful and challenging for today's company executives who are working through these challenges.