Developing Product for Service Sectors |
What are the keys to developing successful new services? The following descriptions identify the critical success factors in day-to-day new service development. These are the activities that occur within projects that differentiate winning new services from losing ones. You can donwload excellent powerpoint slides on marketing management and business strategy here.
Do solid up-front homework before the project proceeds to development • First, homework improves the chances for success. There is strong best-practices evidence to support this. • Second, homework actually reduces time to market. This is because good predevelopment work means that the project definition or specs are accurately stated. One of the greatest time wasters in development projects is that the service specs keep changing. This is analogous to trying to score a goal when someone keeps moving the goalposts. • Third, homework done early allows you to anticipate problems before they become expensive or hard to fix. The worst time to he making changes to a service or to a system is when the new service is rolling out into the market-place!
Adopt a strong market orientation and build the voice of the customer into every facet of the project You can download excellent powerpoint slides on Marketing Strategy and Marketing Management HERE. How do you ensure that your process is decidedly market-oriented? 1. First, the key marketing tasks above should be designed into your process. In many businesses, they are not. 2. Second, the leadership team—the gatekeepers--must mandate that such marketing actions be undertaken in projects. If they are not, stop the project. The problem is that in the short term, marketing actions are treated as optional or discretionary, whereas technical activities, such as writing software code, undertaking alpha tests, or testing the operations and delivery system, are normally not discretionary. Reconsider what is important. 3. Finally, make the marketing resources available to project teams. You cannot win a game without players on the field!
Put in place high-quality teams that are truly cross-functional
Attack from a position of strength, leverage core competencies
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Strive for unique, superior services Here is how to build in superiority by design rather than by chance in every new service project you undertake:
1. Before development begins, figure out what a superior and differentiated service really is.
2. Use the five ingredients of a superior service (above) to rate and rank would-be projects through every stage of the process. After all, these are aiming the strongest correlates of profitability.
Seek service-market fit
1. These services clearly satisfy a customer or user need.
Deliver top-quality services with frontline expertise
Remember to follow through with the last play of the game: a quality launch effort • First, top performers have marketing launch plans that are carefully crafted and very detailed. A formal promotional and marketing communications program with sufficient resources backing the initiative is part of this plan. • Second, all staff understand and fully support top-performing new services. The services have been extensively marketed internally before launch to both frontline and field sales people to ensure their lull buy-in. • Third, customer contact staff possess the necessary knowledge, marketing, and selling skills before launch. Frontline service personnel receive extensive training on the service. • Finally, the winning new service has been thoroughly tested for sign problems prior to launch.
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