Successful product development - a management guide

Developing a new product can be extremely exciting and profitable, but it can also involve a certain degree of financial and technical risk. Read on for some of our product development top tips to maximise your success rate.

1. Make sure your new product concept is based on a genuine (and hopefully quantifiable) desire or need. It is never easy or totally reliable, but some market research is better than none!

2.  Make sure that you understand every aspect of your product in terms of use, safety, production, costs, tests/approvals and competitors. If it needs to survive a one metre drop onto concrete to meet a legal standard, it is best to know at the beginning, not when you’ve finished the tooling.

3. Find excellent design and manufacturing partners and get them involved as early as possible. When it comes to design, you need look no further than Crucible! Your options for manufacturing partners will depend upon your requirements, but ideally you want someone who is happy to offer advice and identify potential issues to reduce the risk of production problems. 

4. If you want to make sure your product is as good as it possibly can be, make sure your timescale and development budget allows for several prototype stages as well as testing and modifications. Product development is a process, not an event.

5. Make sure you consider the finer details that can make the difference between success and failure. These are often relatively low cost issues like the quality of the instructions or packaging, but they can make a huge difference to how your new product is perceived by reviewers and customers.

There are a lot more useful tips and advice in our Guide to Successful Product Development.