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A mARKET REquiREmEnTs’ PERsPECTivE on PRoduCT And sERviCE dEvEloPmEnT  293
                               We can link this idea with the idea of uncertainty reduction, discussed earlier. We
                             made the point that uncertainty reduces as the design progresses. This also applies to
                             each stage of the design, so uncertainty regarding the concept reduces through the
                             concept generation stage; uncertainty about the preliminary design reduces through
                             that phase and so on. If this is so, then there must be some degree of certainty as to
                             which the next stage can take as its starting point prior to the end of the previous stage.
                             In other words, designers can be continually reacting to a preceding stage. However,
                             this can only work if there is effective communication between each part of the stages.



                             A market requirements’ perspective on product and service
                             development

                             Products and services are developed to satisfy market needs. It follows, then, that an
                             important way of judging the effectiveness of the product and service development
                             process is to judge how it performs in terms of quality, speed, dependability, flexibility
                             and cost. These performance objectives have just as much relevance for the production
                             of new product and service ideas or designs as they do for their ongoing production
                             once they are introduced to the market. There is, however, a difference in judging how
                             development processes satisfy market needs. When customers are both familiar and
                             relatively satisfied with existing products and services they find it difficult to articu-
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                             late their needs for novel products or services.  Customers often develop an enhanced
                             understanding of their own needs only when they come into direct contact with the
                             product or service and start to use it. Many software companies talk about the ‘I don’t
                             know what I want but I’ll know when I see it’ syndrome, meaning that only when cus-
                             tomers use the software are they in a position to articulate what they do or don’t require.


                             quality of product and service development

                             In Chapter 1, when we were discussing generic performance objectives, quality was not
                             easy to define precisely. It is no easier when we are looking at the quality of product and
                             service development. However, it is possible to distinguish high-quality product and
                             service development from low-quality product and service development (although this
                             is easier to do in hindsight). A useful approach if we wish to judge ongoing product and
                             service development is to use the distinction between market requirements quality and
                             operations resource quality. By market requirements’ quality we mean the ability of the
                             output from the product or service development process (its final design) to meet the
                             requirements of the company’s intended market position. Operations resource qual-
                             ity indicates the extent to which the final design of the product or service allows the
                             exploitation of the capabilities of the company’s processes.


                             speed of product and service development
                             Fast product and service development has become the norm in many industries. Some-
                             times this is because the pressures of market competition have forced companies to
                             capture the markets’ imagination with the frequent introduction of new offerings.
                             Consumer electronics, for example, significantly increased the rate of new product
                             introduction during the 1980s and 1990s. Sometimes it is the result of fast-changing
                             consumer fashion. Getting to market quickly in order to capture a trend is important in







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