Customer Insights

This course will highlight the potential of quantitative marketing research for assessing new product opportunities. In addition to focusing on the skills and practices for a successful New Product Development (NPD), the course will illustrate the multi-faceted challenges of NPD using authentic business situations. The first module will provide business practice foundations to help learners devise creative solutions to problems using a design-thinking framework. Learners will experience the idea creation process and then apply the role of surveys for evaluating consumer responses to an idea before introducing a product to market. The second module will explore the technique of conjoint analysis for quantifying the customer benefits, customer values, and the trade-off he or she is willing to make between the price of the product and desired features of the product or service. Concept testing identifies perceptions, wants, and needs of a product or service as the foundation of targeting and positioning a product in the marketplace. The third module will describe a multitude of tools for assessing technology readiness and defining the product features to target the key customer need requirements. Learners will hear an in-depth interview with one of the leading U.S. business executives on the management challenges of innovation. Learners will develop a survey (with appropriate data privacy agreements) and analyze the data for decisions about the pricing and positioning a new product into a focused market. The fourth module will illustrate the use of the tools to create a sales and pricing forecast for a new product. Three new product ideas representing three different types of market unknowns will be analyzed using market research tools. Upon completion of this course, the learner will have defined and redefined their product idea and created a credible sales forecast for use in an overall business case.