Marketing Management

SUMMARY: Firms develop new products to increase the width and depth of their product mix and compete in the market place. New products can be categorized as (1) new to the world, (2) new product lines, (3) additions to the existing product lines, (4) improvements in the existing products, (5) repositioning the existing product, and (6) reducing the cost of products.

The stages of new product development are (a) idea generation, (b) screening, (c) concept testing and business analysis, (d) product development, (e) test marketing and (f) commercialization. A company seeks new ideas to enhance the performance of its existing products or for developing new products. New ideas can be generated with the help of customers, dealers, employees, market research consultants, and advertising agencies etc. As all ideas may not be commercially viable, they need to be screened and few ideas are