"Time-to-market has become crucial over the last few years for a variety of reasons: more competition, reduced customer loyalty, pressure on margins, etc." -Ian Anderson, Sagentia.

Increasing global competition and abbreviated product lifecycles force product development times under more pressure.

by Carrie Ellis, PD&D Editor

The Internet has changed everything. Consumers are wiser and it’s arguable that knowledge of a topic breeds a more selective consumer.

The Internet is partly at fault for putting the world in which we live into high drive. Not only can consumers shop around from their home office chair, virtually comparing prices and features, but they can also demand that it arrive within one day.

Thus, both manufacturers and designers are leaning processes to better compete with shorter product lifecycles and increasing global competition — which are becoming exponentially more fierce. Product lifecycles are decreasing as designers continue to “one up” one another, and the Internet has made it easier than ever for consumers to be aware of the difference.

Furthermore, distant global manufacturers can better appeal to consumers due to the Web's inherent ability to defy all geographical boundaries. All of this leaves design engineers on both the beginning and anchor legs of a vicious relay race.

According to Ian Anderson, head of product development at Sagentia, “Time-to-market has become crucial over the last few years for a variety of reasons: more competition, reduced customer loyalty, pressure on margins, etc. But the key issue currently driving it is that purchasers are becoming increasingly sophisticated and are searching for innovative products that really meet their needs. To remain, or get on that all important ‘short list,’ onto the shelf or into a distributor's catalog, manufacturers must constantly excite purchasers with new, interesting offerings in both product and service areas.”

Ian Anderson, Sagentia

Constantly Evolving Platforms
“Pressure on time-to-market reflects the market pressures of ever-reducing product lifecycles,” says Sagentia Head of Product Development Iain Ansell. “The market is demanding more functionality, necessitating a more rapid adoption of new technologies, rendering products obsolete [quicker] than ever. In addition, the consumer industries have adopted clever platforming strategies that have allowed them to launch new products at a daunting rate. In reality, these products are often incremental developments off of existing platforms.

“Business-to-business products are introducing the same thinking, making significant noise when launching a re-skinned product with increased functionality. Traditional development timelines are of little use when they might be longer than the initial market lifecycle," Ansell continues. "As a result, strategies that allow short developments from a platform are essential.”

Anderson postulates, “Clearly [diminished product lifecycles] put pressure on time-to-market as no sooner have you launched a product and achieved stable production, then it is coming to the end of its production life. Of course this can be alleviated by having a clear product development strategy and road map, and then sticking to it. In this way you can continually launch new products and upgrades when in fact you are building on a stable platform.”

Jim Spann, Blue Ridge Numerics marketing vice president, explains, “Companies know the window to generate revenue and profit from a product is fixed; the sooner the product enters the marketplace, the bigger the window to generate profit.” Then you're onto the next quest to enhance that product. To remain competitive, building upon product platforms is a must, but rather than thinking of it as obsolescence, think of it as evolution.

Iain Ansell, Sagentia

Downfall Of Vanilla Products
Global competition cannot be avoided, so what can a design engineer do to increase the desirability of a product while still reducing time-to-market? By making the exact product the consumer is looking for—nothing more, nothing less. The aforementioned stepped product development platform is conducive to this process because the more market research that can be collected as a product is launched (or after it's launched), the more feedback that can be gleaned and honed into a better product for the next step in the platform.

Anderson believes global competition manifests itself in two ways. "Firstly, 'fast-follower' syndrome is often created by a manufacturer adept at taking the essence of a product and launching it (often at lower cost and very quickly), rapidly negating any competitive advantage you may have gained. Hence the need to respond, increasing the rate at which innovation occurs and reducing time-to-market.

Secondly, the larger choice of suppliers for any given market and the ease to which it can be accessed makes purchasers increasingly powerful and selective. They are demanding a personalized service—no more ‘vanilla’ products. To compete and win their business, you need to offer them exactly what they are looking for, resulting in more product launches and the need to get to market ASAP.”

R&D: The Birth Or Death Of A Product?
Market research, prototyping, and testing lengthen the product development process, but conceptually in return, this testing can prove to actually shorten time-to-market if it comes up with conclusive results for a design or product definition change, deeming the testing worthy of the time spent in that phase.

In other words, the success of the product may depend on lengthening the time-to-market process in these critical phases, thereby essentially reducing it by preventing and/or avoiding pitfalls. As Spann so eloquently says, “Any time you remove ambiguity, you speed up the creative process.”

Anderson says, “[Testing] should effectively increase product development time as any product testing, technical- or market-driven, should be expected to throw up changes and modifications—otherwise there is little point in testing. However, if planned correctly in advance and then implemented accordingly, it will help reduce time-to-market. Product testing enables the team to uncover all of those issues that, when found later in the program, will delay, or in the worst case, cancel a launch altogether.

Throw away testing and prototypes at your peril. Theoretical predictive design methodologies and modeling techniques should always be used in advance of any test work to understand the design and manufacturing sensitivities, thereby enabling the development team to focus the prototypes and test work, maximizing benefit.”

Both Sagentia and Blue Ridge Numerics aim to trim time-to-market. Whereas Sagentia mitigates risk through proof-of-concept testing and the like, Blue Ridge Numerics' CFdesign software decreases time spent on testing through design simulations. In closing, Spann leaves us with these sage words: “The consumer is king in free market economies and only agile, responsive companies can earn the consumer’s loyalty.”