Planning For The Launch Of A Product- Discussion

Essential Aspects of Planning for Product Launch

Question:

Discuss About The Mind Planning For The Launch Of The Product?

Planning for the launch of a product is essential. Proper market analyses and assessments make sure that companies can launch its new product or services in such a way that ensures maximum market share. To achieve this, the new product must have the most exposure in the market, to grab the attention of the potential customers (Liedtka, 2015).  A number of things must be kept in mind while planning for the launch of the product, such as the targeted audience, the purpose for the product to be introduced in the market and how would it serve the customers or benefit them. Products also need to be made sure that they are different from the other products of similar kind that are already available in the market. Product differentiation is a vital thing that must be done very subtly, and yet with precision and a clear vision that aligns the product and the organizational ideals. Launch readiness planning refers to the process of analyzing market conditions and other market forces to come up with the strategies that would best suit the purpose of the new product and boost its sales (De Brentani & Kleinschmidt, 2015).

The product that is supposed to be launched by the company is a service package. The service package is a bundle of different services that would promise to provide every conceivable marketing solution under a single umbrella. From the very inception of the business model in the head of the entrepreneur to making the dreams a reality. Every aspect will be taken care of by Prominence Solutions.

In a way, Prominence feels that this service package would be successful because, this is, in its essence, the business expansion model that was followed by them. Given the fact that the company has come a long way after the establishment almost two decades ago, and an idea that was conceived even before that, it is almost a matter of confidence for the company’s own part that their own model will be helpful for many start-ups. Prominence started out as a small consulting agency in a one-room apartment in the suburbs of Victoria and now has more than 7 whole buildings spread across the country. Prominence is relying on their own experience and the path that was taken by them to help other companies who have budding ideas and a vision to change the world.

Prominence Solutions for Custom Marketing Solutions

The company is absolutely aware of the current market scenario: there are hundreds of companies, big and small who offer marketing solutions and business models are also often part of those services (Eggert, Thiesbrummel & Deutscher, 2015). However, the differentiating point, feels Prominence, would be the fact that their plan is solely based on their own business model. The fact that this is something the company has experienced itself, would make their product more reliable and trustworthy. While businesses are supposed to operate only based on profitability and expansion plans, as it should be, Prominence feels their product also has some elements that are exclusive of the company.

However, mere sentiments are not sufficient to ensure a company’s success. That is why Prominence aims to provide an array of services, that are unique in nature and would be sure to put in their best efforts in order to make the start ups established. It is a known and general fact that start-ups are not very strong in financial terms. That is the exact reason why the service package that will be launched by Prominence is priced at a level that is sure to be helpful for many companies. The service package has different combinations and services that can be customized in any way in accordance to the requirements and the necessities of the clients and has virtually no barriers to it. As the start-ups become established ,or at least start generating a profit, the package can be further modified to suit the new requirements. This flexibility can be a huge advantage for any organization that is expanding or just starting out with their business (Eisend, Evanschitzky & Calantone, 2016). This is a key point where the product is set apart from other service packages of the other companies and the plans they provide. Even though the market competition is high, Prominence believes that their product is sure to do good, only because of the flexibility and the realistic approach that it has.

The company has a number of action plans to launch their new services into the market that involves a number of different planning tools.

• Visualization is a key concept that the company is focusing upon. Without first understanding what are the requirements of the clients, and being on the same page, it would be impossible to help making an action plan. Prominence is putting in a lot of effort into properly assessing its own service package, the product, so that basic and primary focus area is understood (Levick-Parkin, & Hanson, 2015). It must be understood which clientele is going to be served and who will be the most potential customers. Without having a proper understanding of the criterion that is to be served, the new product can never be launched in a proper way.
• Mapping the journey is another crucial tool that is used to launch an new product or service into the market. This is a hypothetical assumption of how would the customer do their business and which situations may they face while doing so. This makes the organization understand how can their product prove to be useful for the client. Without first understanding how are they supposed to benefit the client, it would be impossible to market the new product or service, because the marketing strategy is completely dependent on this very knowledge. Otherwise, advertizing the product would be mislead and/or useless, ultimately (Kerzner, 2013).
• Understanding the value chain would enable the organization to supply the clients with the proper value for the spent money. It also facilitates in the process of marketing and distributing the client’s products as well. This also gives somewhat of a pre-held notion and idea about the intentions of the client, which helps to shape the new product accordingly. Prominence is also conducting large scale market surveys of the targeted clientele to understand that area of business as well so that the new product will be useful in the operations of those companies. This is almost tracing back the customer’s journey, from its functions to its core beliefs and ideas about serving the people.
• Mind mapping is a analysis model, or theory, that links every service with another to give a broader idea about how one product can help another, in turn facilitating another set of services to be provided. This is done by extensive market analyses until a pattern emerges which would help to shape the marketing strategy of the service that is to be launched (Vishnevskiy, Karasev & Meissner, 2016). Prominence has a whole team devoted to trying understand the trends and patterns of the market. These patterns then need to be made concise and turned into tangible ideas through getting them under different and/or significant themes.
• Developing the concepts is a sort of future planning on the organization’s part to make sure that the business that is the market of the clients, is a viable one. The prospect of the new service to do well in the market often relies upon the prospect of the targeted client market. This interdependency is something that is very genuine and the inter-web of the different industries play a crucial role in deciding the fate of other industries and new products or services (Vezzoli et al., 2015). Prominence has been looking into every possible sector that may be, even remotely, related to the product. Since marketing strategy cannot discriminate and has to interact with clients from almost every possible industry. This makes the market analyses for the new package all the more burdensome, but Prominence resolves to go through all the hardship and be sure of the feasibility of the new service before rolling it out on the market.
• Co-creating the product along with the customers is something that is very vital to make sure the service becomes a success. The organization has to maintain a close communication with its clients so that every aspect of the client’s expectations are met and any input that the organization may have ought to be permitted by the client (Allen, 2015). Prominence has a strong market reputation for a firm relationship with their customers. This already forms the basic ground for the organization to further develop on this by retaining the relationship with the existing clients, while creating new bonds and connecting with more companies in the future though the new product. After understanding what the customer wants, Prominence will be developing on those basic criterion and try to provide some more alternatives or inputs to the original plans of the clients.
• Prototyping is another important tool that is being used by Prominence to create an idea about how would the new service package look like or how will it be presented to the customers. This would then be market tested and developed to perfection based on the market response received.
• Understanding the basic tenets of “What? How? Why?” . This is something that is very important to have a proper idea before setting onto any business venture. An organization has to have knowledge about what is being produced or provided; how will it be produced (or presented) and why will it be produced. These are the primary questions of economics, which are of utmost importance for every business. Prominence has teams that are dedicated trying to understand and develop the answers to these questions, so that the organization can proceed with the whole procedure with a cohesive idea about what to be done.
• Extreme users is a tool that focuses most upon the customer base that is speculated to use the organization’s new product or service the most. The fact the Prominence has to deal with almost all the industries, extensive customer base is forecasted and hence, it makes the work of the organization hard. Nonetheless, Prominence is set to take up any challenges that come up on the way.

While it is essential for an organization to provide the best possible solution to the requirements of its clients, it must be kept in mind that coming up with the solution is not the end of the process. In order to keep doing business, any industry or organization needs a loyal customer base (Johansson?Sköldberg, Woodilla, & Çetinkaya, 2013). These customers are the pillars of any successful company. To retain this base is no easy task and a lot of time and energy investment is needed to keep up with the evolving requirements of the clients. Prominence knows and understands this very well. That is post-sales services are given extra emphasis so that any problem that may arise after the sale are also recognized by the organization and are resolved promptly. In every single step of the process, a close interaction must be maintained (McDonald & Wilson, 2016). This would make the service package a joint venture and the clients would be feeling a sort inclusion. This feeling can be a great driver, for if the client feels that he/she is a part of the solutions procedure, he or she will extend the level of cooperation even more.

Post-Sales Services for Loyal Client Base

Prominence aims to provide marketing solutions for every aspect of a business. Operations, marketing, sales, logistics and every other dimension that entail running a business. It would first get a comprehensive idea about what are the focus area of the clients and how can the service package be molded to suit the client’s necessities in the best way. With this new direction of the organization, Prominence aims to venture into a new territory. It has extended business in other sectors, which has provided the basic idea of how to run a business. However, this sector is absolutely new to the organization and market surveys are being conducted very minutely, so that no detail or market trend is overlooked. After the sale of the service package, the clients would be given the liberty to change and opt for a new package whenever they feel like it. Moreover, Prominence will also provide any necessary amendments to the service package, if any problem arises.

The organization hopes that, in the long run, they will become of the most widely-known companies in the sector, providing detailed and customized marketing solutions to its clients.

Prominence has charted out almost most of the marketing plan for the launch of their new service. The package and schemes have been set with the primary focus on the requirements of the customers in mind. The organization, however successful in the other sectors, is a new entrée in the marketing and consultancy sector, and hence has to tread very carefully. The time that is needed to examine the market conditions can be done over a period of a minimum of six months, so that no decisions are finalized hastily, without much research.

Conclusion

From the discussion above, it is safe to conclude that, Prominence is on the right direction, trying to gain and accumulate as much information possible. This will surely help the organization to come up with the business plan that is almost guaranteed to benefit the company. Also, since the organization is rolling out a service that it is using for itself with the aims to understand the clients’ needs better, it is almost sure to be coherent and realistic, simply because of the first-hand experience that the organization is gaining through the process itself (Witell et al., 2015).

References

Allen, K. R. (2015). Launching new ventures: An entrepreneurial approach. Nelson Education.

De Brentani, U., & Kleinschmidt, E. J. (2015). The impact of company resources and capabilities on global new product program performance. Project Management Journal, 46(1), 12-29.

Eggert, A., Thiesbrummel, C., & Deutscher, C. (2015). Heading for new shores: Do service and hybrid innovations outperform product innovations in industrial companies?. Industrial Marketing Management, 45, 173-183.

Eisend, M., Evanschitzky, H., & Calantone, R. J. (2016, March). The relative advantage of marketing over technological capabilities in influencing new product performance: the moderating role of country institutions. American Marketing Association.

Johansson?Sköldberg, U., Woodilla, J., & Çetinkaya, M. (2013). Design thinking: past, present and possible futures. Creativity and Innovation Management, 22(2), 121-146.

Kerzner, H. (2013). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Levick-Parkin, M., & Hanson, M. (2015). Design thinking together: how to share the ‘designerly’way of looking at things in order to co-create insights relevant to research participants.

Liedtka, J. (2015). Perspective: Linking design thinking with innovation outcomes through cognitive bias reduction. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 32(6), 925-938.

McDonald, M., & Wilson, H. (2016). Marketing Plans: How to prepare them, how to profit from them. John Wiley & Sons.

Vezzoli, C., Ceschin, F., Diehl, J. C., & Kohtala, C. (2015). New design challenges to widely implement ‘Sustainable Product–Service Systems’. Journal of Cleaner Production, 97, 1-12.

Vishnevskiy, K., Karasev, O., & Meissner, D. (2016). Integrated roadmaps for strategic management and planning. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 110, 153-166.

Witell, L., Anderson, L., Brodie, R. J., Colurcio, M., Edvardsson, B., Kristensson, P., … & Wallin Andreassen, T. (2015). Exploring dualities of service innovation: implications for service research. Journal of Services Marketing, 29(6/7), 436-441.