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Our New Products - Do We Keep Them A Secret?
Posted By: stevef* on 7/7/2005 4:21 AM (CST) 250 Points
We are a small niche market company that designs, manufactures and sells rugged mobile computers. We are also the market leader in two industry verticals. We recently introduced 11 new product concepts at a user conference to gain market feedback. It went well and the feedback was positive that we have the products that will meet requirements. However our CEO is of the belief that we keep our products to ourselves until such times as we have client installations. "We don't want the competition to know" is a well worn phrase. However we believe that we should launch these products and let the market know. I need positive ammunition, unless of course we should hide them, to convince our CEO that we should tell our marketplace, even if it means that the competition find out. Should our strategy be to hide the products and only communicate to a closed user group and business partners or launch our products for all to see?? Please help.

Posted by: ASVP/ChrisB Member Response
7/7/2005 5:32 AM (CST)
If the competition is active in the field, they will probably know of the client installations on the day they occur.

Sine at that stage the products are effectively "in the pubic domain", why not compromise and launch concurrently with the first installations, featuring the happy new users as testimonials to the excellence of your product?

You can pre-organise all of this so it's ready to go on the day of the install. Plus, if you coordinate all the installations for the same day, or very close together, it will look like you have taken the market by storm.

You'll have got what you want, plus your boss will have got what he wants too.

Hope this helps.

Good luck...

ChrisB
 
Posted by: AndrewS Member Response
7/7/2005 6:47 AM (CST)
Your produccts will leak into the market place, I can just see your prospects/customers talking to other suppliers discussing what you have.

For a launch, look at some sort of 'teaser' campaign, create a great deal of anticipation for your products to you get the maximum number of ears when you do finally and officially launch your products.
 
Posted by: NoStressXpress Member Response
7/7/2005 7:38 AM (CST)
I agree with my colleagues. We had similar concerns at Toshiba and decided to do the installs at our larger customers before the promotion. Actually, we let our larger customers do the announcements by showing off how our products benefitted them. However, for the products we had a "patent" or "pending patent" we went ahead and started promoting them after the factory was ready to start mass producing and after all "THIRD PARTY" certifications were received.

I hope this helps.
Conrad
 
Posted by: elambert Member Response
7/7/2005 8:06 AM (CST)
Stevef,

The principal reason for keeping new product development secretive as long as possible is to build product development lead. While a moderate strategic control point, it alone does not provide adequate profit protecting power (see The Profit Zone by Adrian J. Slywotzky and David J. Morrison).

If your organization already spoke about these products at a user conference, the chances are good that your competition has caught wind of them as well. Leaks happen even when customers, who provide early feedback on new product concepts, sign confidentiality agreements.

As Andrew and Chris indicated, the best thing thing to do at this point is to create a buzz and anticipation about the product launch. Develop a pre-launch campaign that builds curiosity without telling the story. Having the official launch include initial installation success stories will help build momentum.

Good luck...

Ernie
 
Posted by: michael Member Response
7/7/2005 8:20 AM (CST)
Years ago we called this "Freezing" the market. In other words if you were the leader you told the market what you were doing to prevent them from making a purchase from a competitor until your product was out.

Sometimes it worked very well....IF you have the reputation of providing high quality stuff. If not, then it backfires and gives the competition time to downplay it.

Michael
 
Posted by: Papadoc (Steve)* Accepted Answer
7/7/2005 9:28 AM (CST)
Oh, great plan! "Let's not tell ANYONE about our new product. That will really confuse the competition."

I've personally never been a fan of competitive paranoia. No, you don't send out your product info and price sheets to your competitors. But the fact is that in competitive fields, it could be the first or the fifth customer that you talk to, but one of them will hand the whole thing over to your competitors... and that's if the competitors don't get their hands on it directly from someone at your company. And if it happens that way, you don't know they know. At least if you do a public launch, you know what your competitors know and you can look out for their response.

If you manage to keep the info out of your competitor's hands for a day, a week, a month... all that must be compared with the loss of potential business by not aggressively seeking new clients. Granted, you may be able to keep it quiet for a little while longer. But that assumption might also lead to complacency in thinking that you have one up on the market and your competitor. What if your competition does know and you don't know they know? You end up with a false sense of security, and you haven't maximized the potential of being the first.

In a similar situation, a particular product had approximately 6 month barrier to entry. So when the manufacturer was ready to go to production, they could count on the fact that there would be a good 6 months for them to gain market share and be "the leader". Unfortunately for them and despite our advice to the contrary, they adopted the approach your company has.

What they didn't know is that one of their sales people left and went to the competitor. The conclusion is that the competitor actually "went LIVE" with their new product a week before our client did. Now THAT is embarrassing. To top it off, the competitor knew the feature set and pricing, copied it and added a few more while reducing the price a few dollars. They named the product similarly and added the word "PLUS" into the name. But what could our client do? The launch was scheduled, the brochures and pricing were in the mail, and the warehouse had initial launch inventory. So in effect, our client was coming in second with what was perceived to be an inferior but more costly product.

My advice to clients has always been to know where your competitor is, but don't spend your time watching over your shoulder. It's hard to effectively steer when you are constantly looking in the rear view mirror. Be a leader and let the competition worry about keeping up with you instead of worrying that they might.

If they are copying you, what does that say about you to your potential clients? If you are perceived to be afraid of them, what does that say about you to your potential clients?
 
Posted by: stevef* Author Response
7/7/2005 9:54 AM (CST)
SteveF - Thank you to those who have responded so far. Responses from both ends of the spectrum.
 
Posted by: Carl Crawford Member Response
7/7/2005 11:33 AM (CST)
Hi stvef,

I think it really depends on the situation.

Take the novel sliding rigger sculling concept( the boat, not drinks to much :P) normally the feet are stationary and you use your legs to push your body to get the boat to go.

But way back ( i cant remember what year) a guy came up with a brilliant idea, what if the body was stationary and you moved your feet to power the boat. This was much faster that the traditional method and it was easier on the body.

Anyway this guy, built a prototype of his concept and went to the world champs of rowing to try and sell the idea. He bragged that he could beat any body with no training using his boat.

So he went into the race and beat almost everyone except the world champion, and the world champion just beat him.

after the race he proved his point that his boat was a much better design, and everybody wanted to buy one but...

he had no stock so was not able to sell it. The next day the governing body of rowwing BANNED his design, and he went bank corrupt.

While this may not apply, it shows my point that you will never know how the market will react.

Also i was leaked a copy of adobe photoshop cs2 full version, a months before it was released to the public for download, by a friend. I since paid for the upgrade.

So it can go both ways
 
Posted by: wnelson Accepted Answer
7/7/2005 5:40 PM (CST)
Steve,

Tell your CEO he’s a twit! No, better not do that. But here are some facts. First, this is PCs we’re talking about, not genomes for a genetically derived cure for cancer. Unless you have figured out how to make them time machines with perpetual energy, your competition has figured out how to make them rugged and fast and have lots of memory. And they know that more of each is better. And you make them cheaper so that your customers pays less and is happier. So what can the competition say about a product announcement? Hey, look! They released a new line of PCs that are cheaper, faster, more memory, and more rugged! Wish we had thought of that! Let’s work on that! They probably have a line in the works that will be better than yours when it comes out and then you will release a new line better than that…and that’s the way the market goes. Granted a little slower than the consumer line, but still…

Second fact is that you “announced” it already at the conference. Your CEO doesn’t think that the competition wasn’t listening as you showed your wares? Only customers came into the booth? Oh, and the comp wouldn’t DREAM of using a customer’s badge to get a peek!

By delaying a “formal” announcement, you risk your competition one-upping you in the press. I’m sure they are thinking of a countermove already and are trying to put a hole in your sails. Being first to market gives the impression of leadership. The guy second to market gets lower market share – you know all this. Put together a formal launch and prime the media for the onslaught.

I once worked for a VP who didn’t want to announce anything until it was 100% completed because engineering couldn’t meet a release schedule. I convinced him to have a structured launch process with technology announcements a year ahead of product release, first product announcement six months before release, and then an announcement at each product release. To counter the issue with engineering missing scheduled, I suggested we fix that versus do business the wrong way to account for this issue. We did just that and this move gave the impression of a fast moving company and makes it hard for the competition to keep up.

So in sum, versus just calling him a twit, explain to your CEO that the comp knows about the products from the conference or from your beta site customers and that delaying announcements will risk being one-upped by the competition. And chances are that if the competition can react, it’s because they already have something in the works prior to finding out about your product – it takes time to develop the product, after all. And by announcing ahead of them, you have degraded their product intro.

Hope this helps!

Wayde
 
Posted by: morgan* Member Response
7/8/2005 6:38 PM (CST)
I just we could keep new products a secret. In the software world, most of us are labelled the marketeers of "vaporware" and I guess we deserve it. Promising new functionality and showing prototypes long before delivery is a recipe for disaster. Its a disaster because your clients will always tell your competition even with nondisclosures. My advice, plan on your competition knowing and use it your advantage. Do your development faster, more efficiently, etc.,etc. At that point, every time they hear you're working on something (and they will hear), they'll be trying to figure out how to catch up.
sm3
 
Posted by: E-Marketing* Member Response
7/11/2005 1:54 PM (CST)
Remember Bill Gates and IBM with OS/2 vs. NT? Microsoft was in bed with IBM to develop OS/2. Then Bill jumped out of the partnership and IBM was left to go it on its own. IBM had barely announced the availability of OS/2 when Bill said - "We'll have NT (that's for New Technology) in a couple of months...". The whole market waited. Few invested in OS/2. Everyone waited. Bill talked about it more. Everyone waited. Eventually MS delivered NT. It was buggy and unstable. OS/2 was stable and predictable. NT went on to be a world beater even in its form. OS/2 was discontinued.

I'd socialize your new products with your existing customers, but, I'd be careful not to prevent them from purchasing today.
 
Posted by: stevef* Author Response
7/12/2005 2:30 AM (CST)
Thank you to all who responded. I now have some valuable insight I shall share with my CEO!! Lets hope he is as receptive as you all were.
 


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