Product Development

Product development is the process that takes a promising idea from an initial concept to a fully developed product or service that is ready to commercialise.

In aftermarkets, developments may include:

• Accessories that complement or upgrade the original product
• Services that add value to the product over the ownership cycle
• Collaboration with 3rd parties to extend beyond your company’s core business.

Therefore, the days of simply servicing or replacing products are long gone.

Indeed, technology, strategic alliances, and direct-to-consumer sales all open up new opportunities to innovate in service and increase aftermarket sales.

7 Steps to Bringing Service Innovation to Market

The product development process for a business that services consumers should be continuous and flexible.

Following this 7 Step plan will get you to market quicker, with less cost and low risk.

1.  Generate ideas

You often generate the best ideas by working in cross-functional teams, ideally with external facilitation.

Alternatively, product development ideas may also come out of strategy workshops. 

In addition, you’re like to discover potential innovations from benchmarking your industry peers or best practices from other sectors.

2.  Prioritise the best/most feasible ideas

Keep it simple by using a prioritisation matrix.

3.  Create a one-page business case

The lean canvass is a very effective way of bringing together succinctly the elements that make your proposed product development potentially a winning proposition for your ideal customers.

4.  Prototype and test

Once you’re sure that your proposed product/business model works in theory you need to create a prototype and test this on real-life customers.

At this stage, your prototype can be basic. However, bear in mind that it does need to be a physical concept that customers can see, touch, or experience.

5.  Soft launch a minimum viable product

Armed with real customer feedback you can develop a minimum viable product (MVP) which you should soft launch in the marketplace and sell to selected target customers.

6.  Iterate and improve

Once soft-launched in the market, you can iterate and improve your MVP.  Additionally, you can optimise the way you build, deliver and support it.

7.  Commercialise

Finally, you move to full commercialisation.

In summary, this Agile process reduces time to market and increases the likelihood of commercial success because you build for and test with your target customers.

How I Can Help You Develop Aftermarket Product and Services

I’ve worked within home appliance and consumer HVAC aftermarkets for nearly 2 decades.

As a commercial leader and consultant, I’ve used the 7-step innovation process to help organisations bring to market all of the following products and services:

• Fixed price repair
• Affiliate marketing
• Home accessory packs
• Pay monthly extended warranty subscriptions
• Replacement product sales through engineers, contact centres, and white label websites

Interested in learning more about bringing new products and services to market?

Want to discuss how I could help you?

Simply book your free business consultation.