Ten-P Paradigm

The Ten-P Paradigm™ for product development

The Time-to-Profit product development methodology incorporates all of the sources of value that contribute to customer satisfaction. Winning the time-to-profit race means perfecting all of the processes that are the new product:

Positioning - how to identify and distinguish the new product from those of competitors,
A new product will not exist in isolation. Instead, it is likely to exist as a part of a firm’s total product line and will certainly exist, and be evaluated by potential customers, in relationship to competing products that satisfy similar requirements. Identification of the context in which we want our new offering to be evaluated is critical to defining the characteristics that will allow the market to identify what it is that we will be selling. We must also identify the characteristics that will set it apart from alternatives within the context. A thorough analysis will include not only the similarities and differences but will also identify differences within the similarities and similarities within the differences.
This first step in product definition is critical to all of the steps that follow but particularly to the promotion of the offering, where we must communicate the position of our offering to the market. The promotion effort will communicate information and that information will focus on the context and the differentiation chosen in this first step. Even if the product is unlike anything available, it must supplant some existing way or ways of spending time, energy or effort. At its inception, the VCR was unlike anything in the market. It supplanted the requirement to watch television shows at the time they were broadcast. With the advent of rented movies, it supplanted the requirement to watch movies at broadcast time or in theaters. With the launch of the video camera, it supplanted the chemistry based home movie camera, projector, and screen.
In this phase, the particular product being developed is distinguished from, and integrated with, the product line of similar products offered, or anticipated, by the firm. If the product is opening a new product line, preliminary determinations are made here to include or omit functions and features in the initial offering. What is clearly essential is included, what is clearly optional is omitted. Functions and features that cannot be identified as clearly essential or clearly optional are left as decisions to be made during the planning and processing elements. If the product will extend an existing product line, features and functions are included or omitted to distinguish the new product and to appeal to a new segment within the broader market.
Planning – how to organize the product development process into development stages and phases,
Experienced project managers are familiar with the processes involved in project planning. Applying these processes to the full spectrum of product launch activities may, however, be a fresh experience for many project managers. Using the ten P’s as the level 1 Work Breakdown Structure, the project manager can establish a comprehensive project plan that incorporates all of the elements required to bring the new product to market. Clearly the successful accomplishment of all of these tasks requires efforts that cross multiple organizational boundaries. An integrated project team is an effective means of establishing and maintaining the coordination that is essential to timely achievement of the goal.
Understanding and managing the dependencies and inter-dependencies across every element of the effort can minimize rework and delay. This understanding forms the basis for establishing a schedule and assigning task responsibilities.
Partnering – how to identify and enlist the support of strategic partners who can make the new offering more attractive to the targeted market segment,
Identifying opportunities to leverage the skills, technologies, and positions of strategic partners and potential strategic partners might begin at this early phase of product development. Re-inventing wheels is not the way to win time to market races. Once the product concept has crystallized, supplier and channel partners can be involved in every step of the product development process. Suppliers have much to gain from their customers’ successes and can be viewed as sources of efficiency that can shave valuable time off development cycles. Channels are valuable sources of information that will help identify, and subsequently develop, the minimum functional feature set that will allow a company to bring a new product to market ahead of its competitors. Project managers can use their contract management experience to ensure that suppliers and partners are in step with the total product development effort.
Producing – how to identify and secure capabilities that will be required to successfully penetrate the market,
This is the traditional realm of the project manager, the design/build sub-project. This element includes the product design and manufacturing design processes. In the toothpaste example, this element includes selection of ingredients that will not only produce a customer satisfying effect within the targeted market segment, but that will also allow the goo to be effectively and efficiently packaged, warehoused, and shipped. With more complex products, where project management techniques have more frequently been employed, the challenges of producing may be of sufficient scale to overshadow the other requirements.
Processing – how to identify and develop ancillary processes required to achieve success in the market,
Processing includes procurement of parts and components, manufacturing and packaging, maintenance of inventories, order processing and shipping, and billing and collection. To the extent that a new product requires modifications of existing processes, or the creation of entire new processes, these modifications and creations must be parts of the project planning and implementation. Without their readiness, the new product cannot be delivered to the marketplace.
Packaging – how to determine the extent and nature of bundling appropriate to the market,
Packaging should not be confused with wrapping. While the wrapping is what allows us to distinguish one brand of soap chips from another in the super market, packaging can bring much more to product differentiation. In the toothpaste example, the package may offer the consumer the ability to extract the goo from its container in a novel way, and induce many consumers to at least try it out just to try out the new package.
Packaging also refers to bundling. Intel’s family of processors constitutes a product line. Primarily, though, consumers see the Intel processor as a part, albeit an important one, of a much more elaborate package, a personal computer. The PC is likely to include an array of hardware, an operating system, application software, and free trial memberships in various networks offering access to the Internet. The Intel processor is, in fact, of little use without at least a major portion of the other pieces with which it is customarily bundled.
Pricing – how to determine a pricing structure that will optimize revenues and profits,
For each targeted market segment, there is a "right" price. Too much above that price will be too expensive. Too much below that price will be too cheap. Unless the price is right, the result will be no sales. A critical deliverable in market research is determination of the right price for each of the market segments into which the new product will be sold. Because price can have a dramatic impact on so many other choices that must be made, pricing must be a high priority at project inception.
Promoting – how to identify and implement an appropriate means of making the market aware of the new offerings
The scope and scale of promotion for a new product will depend on the awareness of need in the market segment for which it is intended and on the maturity of the benefit the new product will offer to that segment.
If the new product represents an incremental improved solution to a need the market already recognizes, promotion can focus on the improvements because a baseline solution is already established in the minds of buyers. If, instead, the new product represents an entirely new solution, promotion must both overcome the bias toward the familiar and educate the market about the new solution paradigm and its presumably superior characteristics.
Placing – how to identify, enlist, and train marketing channels to be employed, and
The identification of appropriate and effective distribution channels has frequently been key to product success or failure. As pointed out earlier, being first to market with a winning new product is likely to offer the broadest field of choice of distribution channels. It is also likely to attract the highest level of attention and marketing effort from selected channels. Whether your new product will employ existing marketing channels or require development of new ones, the total time to market must include the time required to bring these channels to readiness to distribute the new product.
Bringing the marketing channels to readiness must include the creation of awareness of the new product, sales training, and incentives to stock inventory. Determining the right level for inventories is all the more difficult because the product is new and sales cannot be accurately forecast.
Pleasing – how to identify and support customer service requirements of the targeted segment.
Customer Service has justifiably received a great deal of attention in recent literature about product success. Studies indicate that one unhappy customer is likely to report his unhappiness to between ten and twenty other potential customers. This is about triple the number to which a happy customer will act as a reference for a product. The penalties for allowing an unhappy customer to stay unhappy are severe.
The requirements for building and operating a successful and effective customer service operation are beyond the scope of this article. What is within the current scope is to point out that an adequate customer service operation is part and parcel of the product and must, therefore, be a part of the product development project. Whenever the first customer has the first opportunity to become less than satisfied with the new product, customer service must be ready and waiting to restore the customer’s confidence in the product and in the firm that provided that product.