AIB (MBA) 2016 Report for the subject "New Product Management" by A.R.W.M.M.D.Rohana

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New Products Management
A.R.W.M.M.D.Rohana Kumara
B.Sc (Sri Lanka), MBCS (UK), MBA (Reading –AUS)
Master of Business Administration
Australian Institute of Business

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Exclusive summary
The purpose of this assignment is to identify and analyse the opportunities for new product
innovation and management in my current employer “Zone24x7 Private Limited”, which is
providing innovative information technology based software and hardware solutions to their
clients globally. Zone24x7 has been involved in recent robot development project “AZIRO”
include both software and hardware components, which is a product of robotic category
where there has been a notable success not only for company innovation but also the robotic
development segment in Sri Lanka which won the APICTA and NBQSA awards in year 2015
for IT innovation.
After providing the background details for the selected company, author discuss about the
AZIRO robot. Then analyse the opportunities and environmental suitability of the product.
Finally author investigating the organization’s new product management process, it is going
to address organizations’ currently running process, exploring how the process is used to
develop new products, concept selection methods, concept testing techniques which drives
to develop the best e-commerce robot in the industry comparing the organization’s approach
to what the text book (New Product management, by Crawford et al, eleventh edition) says,
analysing what it has been observed and few important recommendations for the
improvement of current processes and practices within Zone24x7 Private Limited.

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Table of contents
Executive summary.............................................................................................................2
1 Introduction………………………………………………..........................................................4
2 An overview of Colombo Software Solutions..………………………………………………...….5
3 Organisation’s new product management process.…………………………………….........6
4 Approach of product management process for new product domain.………..........8
4.1 Practical approach.……….………………………….………………….……………………….…......9
4.2 Theoretical approach …………………………………..................................................10
4.3 Practical vs Theoretical approach.………………………...…………….…………………..…12
5 Recommendations………………………...…………………….…………………….………………….…13
6 Conclusion…………………………………………………………….……………………………………….…14
References........................................................................................................................15

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1. Introduction
New product development management is aligning with managing the process, data analysis,
customer value proposition (make differentiation), creating value, functional and emotional
balance. In order to have the continuity of the IT business and have the sustainability in the
IT market place it needs to have proper process for new product management. Because that
helps the target customer preferring the company brand. Therefore, it is consumer driven
process which creating values to overcome need gap for targeted customer segment and gain
competitive advantage by differentiation. Creativity by solving a problem which competitors
do not, proper communication, right delivery, value by having competitive advantage, target
customer group and profit are the basic elements of this process. Throughout this innovative
methodology it will have three key performance indicators; market share with revenue as the
top line and profits as the bottom line in terms of business.
Global information technology services providing companies such as Zone24x7 align with new
product innovation with their main operation over many years in both software product
development, hardware product development. The different stages of the
software/hardware project life cycle; feasibility study, requirement gathering, design,
development, testing, user acceptance and maintenance are interconnected with new
product management terminology. Idea generators and innovation team includes business
analysts, project leads and project managers, software/hardware engineers, system support
engineers, quality assurance engineers, clients, governments (basically United Status), other
information technology companies and other organisations. Before start the development all
the innovative ideas have to face the in depth screening process and has to qualify to proceed.
Only the qualified innovative ideas selected for the new product development stage. During
innovative new product development project, all the above stakeholders take part in different
segments to full fill different activities to make it real product passing all the
software/hardware project life cycle.

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2. An overview of Zone24x7
Zone24x7 (PVT) Limited is one of the leading software technology solutions company in Sri
Lanka initiated by Llavan Fernando in 2004. Zone24x7 has its sales office in San Jose, United
States of America and also advanced research and development centre in Colombo Sri Lanka.
Currently over 200 top industry experts are working at Zone24x7, which includes 12
nationalities all around the world. Zone24x7 is focusing strong international client base of
North America, European Union and Middle East with wide range of innovative mobile,
software, hardware and firmware solutions.
Zone24x7 recognized as Sri Lanka’s most innovative Software Development Company which
has 15+ US patents owned. Zone24x7 won many local and international awards due to its
engineering excellence and well reputed track record of its innovations which backed by
standard CMMI level 3 software development industry best practices.
The advanced technology centre in Sri Lanka provide Business Process Management,
Independent Software Quality, Infrastructure Management, Customer Experience
Management, Mobility, Enterprise IT Services, Enterprise Information Management, Cloud
Offerings and Business Consulting. They serve Fortune 500 companies and the leading
software vendors in Energy & Utilities, Independent Software Vendors, Manufacturing,
Telecom, Banking and Financial Services, Healthcare, Insurance, Education, Hospitality &
Travel, Information Services and Retail industries.
The annual reports shows that for the full fiscal year 2015, total revenue increased 23% to
$109.9 million, operating profit increased 19% to $22.4 million. (Company growth was broad-
based, particularly within its banking, financial services and insurance and in North America,
Europe, Middle East geographical regions (Zone24x7, 2015).

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3. Organisation’s new product management process
In Zone24x7 terminology it is basically dealing with software and hardware developing. A new
product management process or new product life cycle is the methodical approach to develop
the new software or hardware product. There are number of models for such processes, each
describing the way to a variety of tasks or activities that take place during the process.
Capability Maturity Model (CMMI) is the most prominent model software development
organizations use as the implement process methodology and company practice CMMI level
3 standards. ISO 900, ISO 15504 and Six Sigma are other identified methodologies (SELECT,
1998).
Requirement analysis, specification, software/hardware architecture, implementation,
testing, documentation, training and support and maintenance are the main process activities
or the steps (Raint, 2013). Requirement gathering phase involves extracting the business
requirements into systematic way in order to understand both developers and quality
assurance engineers about the solution that is going to be develop. Specification is to fine
tune and define the scope of the solution. Architecture is the core representation of the
system. Implementation is one of the challenging task to put more effort to develop the
solution using both hardware and software. Testing also important to maintain the quality of
the solution. Documentation is the internal design of software/hardware solution for the
purpose of future maintenance and enhancement. Training and development is essential to
gain new knowledge and improve existing core competencies of the solution. This should
include to the process as main task since it helps to overcome most of the failures in software
producing. Most maintenance is extending systems to do new things, which in many ways can
be considered new work.
Waterfall model and other iterative processes such as agile methodologies are currently use
as the process development models. For the new product development process always
considered agile methodology because innovation project always has to keep provision to
accommodate changes during the execution period due to technical and technology
challenges to develop it (Agile alliance, 2016). Following new product development processes
(Crawford, 2012) practicing in the Zone24x7 innovation process.

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 Opportunity identification and selection Process
Zone24x7 use two different practices to identify the opportunities. First one is
innovation challenge competition for internal employees to come up with their new
concepts and second one is university innovation projects. Then panel of technical and
marketing team analyse the ideas and select the best innovative ideas for innovation
book which keeps all the information of selected ideas to proceed.
 Concept Generation
This stage panel of technical and marketing team work with the innovative idea owner
and sharpen up the raw and speculative ideas in to product concepts based on the
technical and market potential.
 Concept/Project Evaluation
Once a year innovation team including senior management, software/hardware
architects and marketing experts get together to evaluate the innovation ideas to
proceed in the next financial year.
 Development
Only the innovation team selected ideas will take in to development stage and idea
owners will be part of the development team. In this stage team design the
software/hardware architecture, marketing plan which test and evaluate until it fit to
the right market.
Use case models are a useful way of identifying meaningful increments which
implement single large, or groups of smaller use (SLDC, 2015)
 Launch
In this stage Zone24x7 launch the new product in to the right market in the right time
to cater the unique customer segment and gain the highest market share to get the
competitive advantage for that particular product.

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4. Approach of product management process for new product domain
The introduction to the new robot development domain as follows:
The new product is a leading automated inventory management robot owned and operated
by Zone24x7. This product currently offers functionalities of tracking current inventory of
every storage location using RFID technology and predict future demand of inventory in
mainly retail outlets and warehouses. The new product concept is already presented to
world’s leading retail outlets like Macys and Kohl’s, which they already purchased 10 robots
for pilot run in 2016 and then expand throughout their US warehouses and retail outlets.
It is focused on providing up-to-date inventory status of each shelf in the retail outlet or
storage location in ware house facility including previous stock before scan, current stock,
daily sales, current demand of stock and future demand of stock.
 About the new system
This product planning to be world’s simplest automated inventory management service
provider. Its vision is to be a leader in offering automated inventory management service to
the global retail and warehouse market.
 Business objectives
The key business objectives are:
o To achieve acceptable level of reliability of the product platform.
o To build a futuristic modern solution to cater to the needs of current and potential
customers.
o To make the product scalable to be able to support the global markets and large
numbers of users (outlets and warehouses)
o To build a framework that facilitates capturing of performance data generated by
robot and provide reporting capability.
o Eliminate legacy technology and associated reliability issues that are present in the
current manual work.
o Build user interaction data capturing and analytics built in to the stock to be able to
measure the usage of stock.

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o To be able to present stock level as simple graphical view in desktop and mobile
devices.
o Provide an intuitive, efficient user interface that caters to different type of users in
different departments.
4.1 Practical approach
Usually company itself can have their own new product or they can develop new
software/hardware to client requirement. The considered scenario is “AZIRO” robot
production as own new product. Therefore, the idea and screening and concept development
and testing steps should basically covered by the Zone24x7. For the purpose of process
alignment and accepting the software development the management can have high level
discussion or formal meetings with different teams internally. If the internal teams comes to
an agreement, then they can proceed next step to build the new solution. Since this is internal
project there is a client who is internal and agreement should prepare according to the
process.
With that official agreement development team starts the new robot development process.
Business analysis’s gather requirements from internal client and present to the
software/hardware engineers and quality assurance engineers. Both development engineers
and quality assurance engineers start doing estimations, designs with project managers and
financial managers. They decide the scope, time duration, resource allocation in addition to
the method of implementation. Developers start with architectural design and quality
assurance engineers start with scenario identification to write test cases. Before having any
development or test case writing the internal client should agree with the architectural design
and test scenarios to identify main areas to ensure the quality of the product.
Lot of documentation and internal client demonstration happens before the main release to
ensure whether it is building the right product and the product is right. This is done in order
to improve the visibility and avoid from major failures. The other reason that is aligning with
a predefined “Zone way” process is Zone24x7 is using for their all development projects.
Therefore, a standard and strong communication should happen internally as well. The
working team fallen under a hierarchical level and each job role task is predefined.

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Most of the time after internal client acceptance and with desirable main functionalities the
robot product is launched to the pilot run internally. The other sub functionalities,
enhancements and maintenance are done parallel. And also the internal client feedback and
pilot run results and external client feedback are redirected to a new “AZIRO” robot.
4.2 Theoretical approach
The theoretical approach of new product development lies with idea generation, screening,
concept development and testing, business analysis, product and marketing mix
development, market testing, and commercialization. The following description is based on
the reference book; ‘New Product Management’ (Cawford, 2012).
The first step of new product development requires gathering new ideas to be evaluated as
potential product options. For many companies’ idea generation is an ongoing process with
contributions from inside and outside the organization.
In Step two the ideas generated in Step one are critically evaluated by company personnel to
isolate the most attractive and innovative options. With a few ideas in hand the marketer now
attempts to obtain initial feedback from customers, distributors and its own employees.
Generally, focus groups are convened where the ideas are presented to a group, often in the
form of concept board presentations and not in actual working form.
At the point of business analysis in the new product development process the marketer has
reduced a potentially large number of ideas down to one or two options consider as step
three.
Now in Step four the process becomes very dependent on market research as efforts are
made to analyse the viability of the product ideas. Ideas passing through business analysis are
given serious consideration for development. Companies direct their research and
development teams to construct an initial design or prototype of the selected idea or product.
Marketers also begin to construct a marketing plan for the new product. Once the prototype
is ready the marketer seeks real user inputs. Reaction that is less favourable may suggest the

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need for adjustments to elements of the marketing mix. Once these are made the marketing
team may again have the end user testing of the product. In addition to gaining end user
feedback, this step is used to gauge the feasibility of large-scale, cost effective production for
manufactured products.
Products surviving to Step six are ready to be tested as real products. In some cases, the
marketing accepts what was learned from concept testing and skips over market testing to
launch the idea as a fully marketed product. But other companies may seek more input from
a larger group before moving to commercialization.
Finally, there are several advanced approaches to market testing including virtual reality and
computer simulations. With virtual reality testing end users are exposed to a computer-
projected environment. With computer simulations end users may not be directly involved at
all. Instead certain variables are entered into a sophisticated computer program and
estimates of a target market’s response are calculated.
If market testing displays promising results the product is ready to be introduced to a market.
Some firms introduce or roll-out the product in waves with parts of the market receiving the
product on different schedules. This allows the company to ramp up production in a more
controlled way and to fine tune the marketing mix as the product is distributed to new areas.
Marketing strategies developed for initial product introduction almost certainly need to be
revised as the product settles into the market. While commercialization may be the last step
in the new product development process it is just the beginning of managing the product.
Adjusting the product’s marketing strategy is required for many reasons including; Changing
end user tastes, Domestic and foreign competitors, Economic conditions.
To stay on top of all possible threats the marketing team must monitor all aspects of the
marketing mix and make changes as needed. Such efforts require the marketing team to
develop and refine the product’s marketing plan on a regular basis. In fact, as we will discuss
in The Product Life Cycle and Marketing Planning tutorial, marketing strategies change as a
product moves through time leading to the concept called the Product Life Cycle. We will see

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that marketing team make numerous revisions to their strategy as product move through
different stage of the Product Life Cycle.
4.3 Practical Vs Theoretical approach
Most of the time when considering the robot production in real world scenarios, the idea is
generated by the IT companies and provide the solution to their target clients. The theoretical
approach is generalized for all most all the product. Therefore, this approach should be
modified according the company process and the product behaviour. But the core concept;
opportunity identification, concept generation, project evaluation, development and launch
is same with every software/hardware product since the new product management is
customer driven process where in this scenario Zone24x7 think what their client needs. All
the technological solutions provide to reduce on of the identified targeted customer
segments’ needs and wants gap. Also Zone24x7 successfully identified the niche customer
segment who suffers lot lack of technology to simplify their work.

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5. Recommendations
Since this is all about the introduction of a new product the all the possible risks should
identify beforehand by Zone24x7. Risk mitigation and contingency plans should have to have
before starting the process. New product deals with innovation therefore, research and
development process should establish and it is good of that process can link with the product
development process. Training and evaluation also should happen with prior to gain new
knowledge.
From business perspective, when it comes to implement new software and hardware product
the technology which supposed to be used should consider. Zone24x7 is well known for
robotic technology solutions providing. Considered scenario it is a good solution because the
target customer group is high end retail outlets in United States of America. They are basically
use new innovation to reduce their latency due to manual work done by humans. Therefore,
these kind of basic factors should identify from a market research. The process should align
with those type of known factors.

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6. Conclusion
New product management process with opportunity identification. Under this stage first
phase, it should identify strategic elements of product development, the new product process
and strategic planning for new products. The second phase, concept generation describes
creativity and product concept, finding and solving customers’ problems, introduction and
perceptual mapping and trade-off analysis and qualitative techniques. Third phase, project
evaluation deals with the concept evaluation system, concept testing, the full screen, sales
forecasting and financial analysis and product protocol. The fourth phase, development which
deals with design, development team management and product use testing. The final fifth
phase, launch is all about strategic launch planning, implementation of the strategic plan,
market testing, launch management and public policy issues. All these phases help the
organization to launch the right new product in to the right market in the right time to earn
right amount of market share and profit.

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References
What is Agile?, available at https://www.agilealliance.org/agile101/what-is-agile/ Viewed
8th April 2016
Brewers, C, ‘How To Simplify Your Business — Saving You Time, Money, And Endless
Headaches’, 31 Steps To a Smart Business, available at
http://www.codebrewers.com/?gclid=CPCa5ujsw8kCFRaVaAoduX0AAQ, Viewed 5th April
2016
Crawford MC, Benedetto AC, ‘New Product Management’, 2012, eleventh edition
SELECT, 1998, ‘Business solutions: Software and services, available at
http://www.selectbs.com/analysis-and-design/what-is-a-software-development-process,
viewed 4th April 2016
Soft, R 2013, ‘6 basic steps of software development process’, available at
http://www.slideshare.net/RiantSoft123/6-basic-steps-of-software-development-process,
Viewed 7th April 2016
Software Development Life cycle, ‘What are the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)
phases?’, 2015, available at http://istqbexamcertification.com/what-are-the-software-
development-life-cycle-sdlc-phases/, viewed 5th April 2016
Zone24x7, ‘Zone24x7 (Pvt) Ltd’, available at http://www.zone24x7.com/, Viewed 4th April
2016