Question

Topic: Strategy

Our New Products - Do We Keep Them A Secret?

Posted by Anonymous on 7/7/2005 at 5:21 AM ET 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.
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by Chris Blackman on 7/7/2005 at 6:32 AM Member
    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 ReadCopy on 7/7/2005 at 7:47 AM Member
    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 michael on 7/7/2005 at 9:20 AM Member
    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 Carl Crawford on 7/7/2005 at 12:33 PM Member
    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 on 7/7/2005 at 6:40 PM Accepted
    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
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