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New Product Development from the Perspective of Creating a Competitive Advantage


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Figure 1.

Illustration of the competitive advantage Notations: B1 — customer-perceived benefits of a competing product usage, B2 — customer-perceived benefits of a new product usage, C1 — costs of a competing product, C2 — costs of a new product, V1 — the economic value of a competing product, V2 — the economic value of a new product.Source: own work.
Illustration of the competitive advantage Notations: B1 — customer-perceived benefits of a competing product usage, B2 — customer-perceived benefits of a new product usage, C1 — costs of a competing product, C2 — costs of a new product, V1 — the economic value of a competing product, V2 — the economic value of a new product.Source: own work.

Proposed actions for competitive advantage in new product development (NPD)

Phase of NPD process Proposed actions

Opportunity identification Evaluation of a given opportunity in terms of its potential to generate competitive advantage, which includes the following: a) determining a competing product in the case of utilising the opportunity; b) estimating the economic value of the competing product; c) identifying the possibilities of generating higher economic value than the economic value of the competing product when utilising the opportunity.
Concept generation and evaluation Creating a new product concept with the highest possible economic value.Evaluation of the planned new product in terms of achieving a competitive advantage, which includes the following: a) estimating the economic value of this product based on the upper price limit, determined in the concept testing, and according to the planned production costs; b) comparing the economic value of this product with the economic value of the competing product.
Development Creating both a prototype and products of a trial production of the highest possible economic value.Evaluation of the planned new product in terms of achieving a competitive advantage, which includes the following: a) estimating the economic value of this product based on the upper price limit, determined in use tests, and on evaluation of its costs, respectively, for the prototype or trial production products; b) comparing the economic value of the planned new product with the economic value of the competing product.
Market launch Evaluation of the planned new product in terms of achieving a competitive advantage, which includes the following: a) estimating the economic value of this product based on the upper price limit, determined in the market test, and evaluating the costs of the new product, taking into account the costs of producing products for market test and the costs of planned marketing actions related to the new product; b) comparing the economic value of the planned new product with the economic value of the competing product.Evaluation of the new product in terms of achieving a competitive advantage after its market introduction, which includes the following: a) estimating the economic value of this product based on the upper price limit, determined in the tracking study, and according to the actual costs related to the new product; b) comparing the economic value of the new product with the economic value of the competing product.