A short guide to a successful launch
Know your market before product development starts
Every product begins with an idea, but not every idea ends with a product. To develop successful products, it is important to ask the right questions. Besides the fact that local market search is vital, it also provides insight into trends, current products and gaps in the market.
Know your market before product development
Local, national or international market research is crucial before developing ‘new’ products or relaunches and is a crucial starting point for small and medium enterprises with limited resources to avoid wasting capacity. Ideally, market research uses many tools including statistical data, social media and contact with the final buyers of the products, with the aim of identifying trends, current products and gaps in the market.
Pet parents have very strong beliefs and will tell what they want, what they don’t want and help researchers identify gaps in the marketplace. It is also a good idea to visit pet shops where retailers deal with many issues on a daily basis and will share them with you. Describe or show them the concept and ask “Would you place this product on your shelves?” You will not receive straight answers, but it will generate valuable ideas for the product development process.
Critical success factors for successful product development
Taking a ‘new’ product from concept to market is a multi-step process with many critical success factors to ensure that customer and other stakeholder demands on quality, safety and performance are met. Figure 1 outlines the relationship between the market and the process, highlighting the importance of good communication and project management.
Once a gap in the market has been identified, a successful translation of concepts into a ‘new’ product also requires that a project team is implemented with skills in product development combined with other competences such as creativity and brainstorming.
Steps of product development
Product design
Product claims must be clearly defined. These claims identify the ingredients and raw materials to be used. They influence the price, product quality, for example in terms of nutritional quality and product functionality. Finally, cost formulation software can be used for recipe optimization (to deliver expected quality and nutritional composition) at the optimum price.
Pilot testing
Adequate prototype development is important for market research trials and to test different versions of the product. This phase gives an insight into what to improve for a better market acceptance and/or to prevent problems in the production process.
Quality evaluation
Analyzes of the product will help evaluate quality. It is important to define the main product characteristics to measure, for instance, proximate analyses (nutrient values), microbiology, food safety, technical and biological quality (digestibility; faeces quality).
Scale up and factory implementations
Translating new products into factory scale production can be challenging. Here, critical success factors might include the nature of the product itself, ‘people’ factors (like multicultural / interpersonal differences between teams) and pressure to ensure shortest downtime to allow ‘normal’ production to fill orders. To maximize the chance of success, involvement of the production team at the design phase is crucial for the early identification of limitations and options.
Key elements in product development
Packaging design is essential for success, as this helps differentiate your product from others on the market. Experience shows that this is of equal importance to quality and price when it comes to product choice. Packaging design also clearly communicates your product claims and message. Due to the lack of pet industry knowledge, external designers might need guidance as you are the one who knows your concept best.
For a successful product launch, one should also include a market plan and strategy. With the emergence of social media as an important marketing tool, social media strategy must be well defined. Ongoing success also relies on continuous improvement with customer feedback, after launch, feeding ideas into product development process. Product development and innovation is always great fun, but to meet the needs of today’s pet owner / pet parents, don’t lose focus on quality and product safety. In general, have fun and remember that a failure to plan is a plan to fail.