Successful start-ups and established companies are always on the lookout for the next big thing to change the industry. But how do you turn promising ideas into tangible new products for a receptive market? It generally requires a comprehensive, cost-effective and consumer-focused product development and testing process. Fortunately, the latest testing methodologies and technology for hire can help make it happen.
CONDUCTING EFFECTIVE RESEARCH
You’ve heard the adage that failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Yes, creative thinking and ambition do often lead to the best new products and services. However, it’s also important to not put the innovative cart before the practical horse. Will your solution meet the demands of your target market? Can you reach any meaningful conclusions before allocating significant financial resources to an unproven project? A successful product release can usually be traced back to effective market research at the very beginning. For example, you can conduct customer surveys via digital touch screens or smartphones at a public kiosk. Alternatively, equip focus group meetings with laptops, workstations and interactive voting systems to learn what people actually want or need.
DIGGING DEEPER WITH LATEST TECH
A number of cutting-edge methods now allow you to gather more comprehensive customer feedback and insights about your proposals. Consider qualitative market research techniques involving online activity and social media monitoring or quantitative market research techniques such as questionnaires with built-in facial emotion recognition. In either case, technology is the driving force. And, of course, the ability to collect and leverage ‘big data’ via the Internet of Things (IoT) and powerful server hardware has made market research an even more compelling link in the innovation chain.
TESTING, TESTING
Most great ideas require a serious product testing phase to succeed. You need to discover weak points, fix bugs, improve functionality, enhance the user experience, and keep going until your confidence in the product matches your enthusiasm. One of the worst mistakes you can make is to waste resources on manufacturing something by the thousands when it simply isn’t ready yet. Therefore, by hiring whatever technology and equipment you need to test a product over and over again, under real-world conditions, you give a development team the best chance of achieving its goals within budget.
PUTTING INNOVATION INTO ACTION
No matter how much time and energy you’ve rightly spent on pre-development market research and product testing, it’s still absolutely essential to discover how consumers respond to your prototype in action. The market may have loved the concept, but is it equally impressed by the product you’ve created? There are many efficient ways to find out, and again they largely rely on the use of technology. Aside from the obvious – more focus groups and surveys – this is the time to get creative with wearable devices, smartphone and tablet apps, virtual reality technology and other hardware encouraging consumers to engage with your product and share their experiences prior to an official launch. If it’s not quite right, you can always go back to the drawing board.
Want to discover the latest testing methodologies and tech for new product development? Get in touch with Hire Intelligence today.
