Chapter 4: Product/Service Development

Flashcards covering product and service development processes, marketing strategies, and intellectual property systems, with specific details on the Ethiopian IP framework.

Product/Service Development

The complete process of bringing a new product or service into the market, involving an ongoing practice of looking for opportunities to provide growth and strengthen market position.

Customer Satisfaction

The result of developing products and services that possess all the attributes required by the customer, aimed at achieving delight through robust performance and practical design.

Idea Generation

The first stage of the new product development process focused on searching for ideas from sources like consumers, existing products, distribution channels, government, and R&D.

Incubation

A stage in the development process involving preliminary design, prototype creation, actual design, product proposal screening, and feasibility studies.

Implementation

The stage where the process progresses from the first prototype to limited manufacturing, testing, and justifying the product through legal considerations and commercialization.

Diffusion

The final stage in the development process involving full production, market targeting, market tests, and planning production capacity.

Idea Screening

The process of reducing the number of ideas to a few vital ones by sorting them into three groups: Promising Ideas, Marginal Ideas, and Rejects.

Product Concept

A refined version of an attractive idea that describes who will use the product, what benefits it provides, and when it will be consumed.

Concept Testing

The testing of product concepts with an appropriate group of target consumers to get their reactions using word or picture descriptions.

Marketing Strategy Plan

A three-part plan consisting of market size/structure/behavior; planned price, distribution, and budget; and long-run sales/profit goals and marketing mix strategy.

Business Analysis

The evaluation of a proposal's attractiveness by preparing sales, cost, and profit projections to determine if they satisfy company objectives.

Breakeven Analysis

The simplest financial measure used to evaluate the merit of a new product proposal during business analysis.

Prototype

A physical version of a product concept developed by R&D or engineering to test functional characteristics and physical cues.

Functional Tests

Tests conducted under laboratory and field conditions to ensure a product performs safely and effectively regarding durability, speed, and cost.

Market Testing

A stage where the product is tested in authentic consumer settings to learn market size and how consumers and dealers react to handling and repurchasing it.

First Entry Strategy

A strategy where a firm launches first to enjoy the first mover advantage of locking up key distributors and gaining a reputation.

Late Entry Strategy

An entry strategy where the firm lets competitors bear the cost of market education, avoids faults found in competing products, and learns the actual market size.

Parallel Entry Strategy

A commercialization strategy where a company enters the market at the same time as competitors.

Critical Path Scheduling (CPS)

A network-planning technique used to sequence and coordinate the many activities involved in launching a new product.

Intellectual Property

A legal definition of ideas, inventions, artistic works, and other commercially viable products created out of one's own mental processes.

Patent

A contract between an inventor and the government granting exclusive rights to the benefits of an invention in exchange for its disclosure.

Utility Patent

A type of patent that protects any new invention or functional improvements on existing inventions.

Design Patent

A patent that protects the appearance of an object, covering new, original, ornamental, and unobvious designs for articles of manufacture.

Trademark

A distinctive word, symbol, design, slogan, or sound that identifies the source or sponsorship of certain goods or services and can last indefinitely.

Copyright

Exclusive rights provided to creative individuals to protect literary or artistic productions and prevent others from printing, copying, or publishing them.

Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office (EIPO)

An office established in $2003$ to facilitate legal protection and exploitation of intellectual property and disseminate technological information from patents.

Industrial Application

One of the three conditions for a patent in Ethiopia, meaning the invention must be something that can be industrially manufactured or used.

Non-obvious

An Ethiopian patent requirement stating the invention should not be something that would have occurred to any specialist working in the relevant field.

Patent Duration (Ethiopia)

The status of protection lasting for $15$ years, which may be extended for a further period of $5$ years if proof is furnished that the invention is properly worked.

Copyright Protection Duration (Ethiopia)

Protection typically lasting for the life of the author plus $50$ years, or $20$ years for broadcasting organizations.