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Page 1 of 4 Use the R&D area to maintain your product line:
• The table in the upper left represents your current product offering;
• Each row displays a different product;
• Companies start with five products and can add or discontinue products, to a maximum of eight or a minimum of one;
• The green columns allow you to change a product’s performance, size and reliability (MTBF);
• The yellow columns and graphs display the impact of decisions.
There are three types of R&D projects:
• Repositioning, which changes a product’s performance or size or both, therefore moving the product from its current location on the Perceptual Map to a new one. MTBF ratings can be (but do not have to be) changed when a product is repositioned;
• Reliability adjustment, which changes a product’s MTBF without changing its position;
• Invention, which creates a new product.
Use the Customer Buying Criteria boxes on the Market Segment Analyses (pages 5-9 of The Foundation® FastTrack) to help determine the best position and reliability level for your products.
When a repositioning project completes, the product's age is cut in half. Thus, R&D drives three of the four buying criteria — positioning, reliability, and age — leaving only price, which is determined by Marketing.
Note: Your product will continue to sell with the old specifications up until the completion of the project, at which point it will begin to sell with the new specifications.
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