New Product Development (NPD) is an exploring field, leading to oceans of knowledge in various areas of the working environment. NPD includes catalogs like idea generation, idea screening, concept development & testing, business analysis, prototype & market analysis, and technological implementation & commercialization. Before going in-depth with NPD and its catalogs, we need to understand a basic concept called PLC (Product Life Cycle); PLC is the same as it’s called Product’s life expectancy.

How long can a product hold the market and prevent its value from detreating? This PLC concept can be explained in 4 stages: introduction, growth, maturity & decline. Consider a particular product or example, food ordering apps. It was a new strategy to accrue every restaurant small, scale hotel, three stars, five stars & 7 stars and to create a common ground for everyone in business; they used this database or common ground to spread the name of their product, leading to the growth of their idea after a certain period to time the whole concept gets mature & competitors arise in the market with similar apps. As competitors occur, the profit gets neutralized, and the gain for the particular project decreases.

In this stage, the product is represented, and the idea of a product in terms of utility and function is standardized. Involves research, survey & development.

Growth: Growth is crucial for any product to succeed or fail. In this stage, product value can be manipulated to gain profit depending on its success rate.

Maturity: In this stage, the product gains stability in the market, and a regular product flow is observed. Depending on the success of the product, other competitors begin to rise.

Decline: The product cost will decline as there are other competitors for the same product. Production and requirement of the product may or may not remain constant. Below are the details for the NPD catalogs.

Generating an idea is a curious process involving research and development, marketing, survey & huge Investment.

Idea screening: A prototype of the idea is made and tested, and customer views, market study & various other factors play in the decision-making of the product.

Concept development & testing: A proper plan for developing and producing the idea is studied, and process testing concerning costing, return on investment, and various other factors are formulated and processed.

Business Analysis: At this stage, the first step to the actual development of the product is planned and executed; necessary machinery, workforce, storage & various other factors are planned out for the manufacturing process. Various forms of marketing strategies are formulated for the success of the business.

Prototyping & market testing: The first lot of the product is launched into the market, and observe the product’s drawbacks concerning consumers. After the feedback is analyzed, necessary Engineering changes are made to improve the business.

Technological implementation: This stage helps to improve production depending on the demand for the product from the market, large-scale production planning, and establishing new plants to support the market.

Commercialization: Now that the idea is taken the shape of the product, and the product has occupied the market as per its demand, standardization of the price and success of the concept is observed.