The Research and Development Department of a Business
The work of research and development involves developing new products
and improving current ones through various forms of research. New
products and improvements to current products are needed to meet the
requirements of customers, taking into consideration changes in
consumer demand, seasonal sales changes, and the availability of new
materials and technology. The marketing department collects
information about changes in consumer demand and the requirements of
customers. The research and development department must also be aware
of new materials, technology and products that affect the customer's
requirements and possibly the future of their customers needs. For
example development within the music industry has moved it forwards
with the development from audiocassettes audio CD-ROMs.
New technology can also allow a company to manufacture a product more
efficiently to meet consumer needs and demand. Research is also vital
as it provides information for the development of products
Also research and development can be split into sub functions, 2 of
which are product research and product development, which are linked.
Text Box: Over 90% of previous ideas are abandonedHere is a rough
drawing to show how the product research and product development work
together on improving products.
Text Box: Can help company’s plan
Text Box: Market research, to discover consumer needs and thoughts
Text Box: Product research, trying to develop new ideas for goods and services
Text Box: May lead to
Text Box: Product development, new goods and services to meet consumers’ needs
Research and development is very expensive and can be very time
consuming for many businesses to be see positive results from it, even
though this can be the case most of the time most businesses invest
greatly in research and development, some companies put millions into
their research and development departments. Some of the main reasons
are:
* They gain an advantage over rivals
* Developing new and better products for customers
* Allows them to assess how they're products are doing
Our research team did wonderful job in providing us information relative to the market trend, product positioning and so much more. Their finding allowed us to update and upgrade our marketing efforts in the way that is desirable and beneficial for the company.
Two examples of new product development tools include stage-gate processes and the critical path method, both of which possess benefits and cons. In the context of bringing a new product to the market place, the stage-gate method provides many direct benefits to the product manager. Stage-gate processes allow organizations numerous opportunities to kill projects that no longer seem to be viable products, saving both wasted time and money (Cooper, 2014). Additionally, the stage-gate process provides incentive for senior management to keep abreast of the development cycle of new products. For these reasons, it is suggested that product managers strive to implement stage-gate processes into their development of new
Research and development is a very important aspect of this industry and it is very draining on a company's funds. Great emphasis is also placed on product placement and marketing. Though these products are usually marketed towards industry professionals such as doctors and hospital management.
This is where a firm has a research team look in to possible new ideas
Ford’s research and development capabilities act as strength to the company as customer wants and needs constantly change. Ford currently operates fifty-six research and development centers focused on improving the quality of Ford’s vehicles. Also, Ford invests billions of dollars every year to improve quality, performance, and overall customer satisfaction.
However, this vision generates an overlapping problem between the marketing department and the product development department. The marketing department, among other duties, is responsible for the identification of new opportunities and also to assure the development of new products. Unless these activities are extremely well coordinated with the product development department, there will be misalignment in the strategy of the EPD. Ultimately, this misalignment will affect a third department, i.e. the manufacturing department, since it is directly involved in the product development process.
Morgan, J.M. & Liker, J.K. (2006). The Toyota product development system: integrating people, process, and technology. USA: Productivity Press.
By following closely the six steps of the new-product development process, the company could expect such benefits as: improved teamwork, less re-working, earlier detection of likely failure, and higher success rates. (Rix, Peter, 2001, Marketing, A Practical Approach).
Managing the new product development process is the biggest growth barrier for large corporations. Lack of effective knowledge on innovation development creates mismanagement in company. The development of innovation into a final product is as important as the innovation. The underlying problem in mismanagement is present with team managing. Creating challenging tasks, questioning and generating ideas should be key activities in business
The next step is the growth stage. In this stage product growth is monitored and big investments are made. Maturity stage the growth of the outputs is significant. For the company to ensure product survival in the market and gain a competitive advantage over competitors it has to incorporate product differentiation. The final stage involves product decline stage. In this juncture product sale goes down and the product identification
Nintendo wii’s research and development department responsible for designing Nintendo hardware and doing research for the consoles. Because having strong competitors Nintendo wii have to make its product better and different from others. They have to make their game and consoles unique. For this, they have to give more importance on research and development because for making their product unique they need to know about the games and features their competitors providing to the customers and then only Nintendo wii come to know about what features they have to provide in their games to make their game
It is important that the marketing department functions well with research and development, production, and finance. In conjunction with the research and development team, marketing should add input concerning when products are launched and whether old products need to be repositioned. Production works with marketing to forecast future unit sales and subsequent areas that are affected by unit sales, such as contribution margin. Besides the research and production divisions, marketing also works with finance to create sales projections and the marketing budget (Art
reviews and revises its task loading to be in effective in its future search for
Its objective is to integrate people, process, and technology. Toytoa’s product development procedure is essentially different from a manufacturing process. Its backbone is not visible, but knowledge and information which are untouchable. The product development’s cycle time is much longer than hours. It usually takes weeks or even months. The production chains are non-linear and multi-directional. Workers are no longer manufacturing workers but specialists with high diverse technology. This product development strategy is viable for Toyota. This is because this strategy does help Toyota to prolong the life cycle of current product. For instance, Toyota Camry is a very successful current product which is prolonged its life. Camry has been made since 1980s. Camry is set at an middle-high level of family veichle. After 30 years development, Camry is still very famous all over the world. This cannot be separeted by Toyota’s successful product development strategy. One of the key features of the Toyota product development system is functional engineering managers. They are primarily teachers in the Toyota system, who are the most technically competent engineers, with the highest levels of experience. Toyota’s management group is consist of high educated experts. They were all engineers and their technical excellence is very famous. But recently, Toyota’s product development system does not work very well. In
Research and development plays a big role here at Samsung creating the ability towards taking the next step of building a better future. In 2015, Samsung spent $14 billion dollars on research and development alone, so it’s surprise why we are willing to spend $50 million on the first year of the product. We will use our research and development team to improve the quality of our smartphone via updates and discover reasons why consumers are passing up on our new smartphone. From year 1 to year 2 there will be an increase of 16% in the research and development expense and from year 2 to year there will be a 7% increase. Most of our highly praised tech like the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are due to are research and development teams. The general / selling/ administrative expenses all include fixed costs, advertisements, and direct and indirect costs. With the percentage nearing the profit margin it represents that we’re are in the competitive smartphone market. The change from year 1 to year 2 for the general / selling / administrative expenses increased by 9% and it increased again but only by 4%. The pie graph at the bottom displays the % that goes to in expense. For General / Selling / Administrative expense, I’ve separated the advertisement budget to its own