Exam 9: Product Management and New-Product Development

Rob Rose sat back to review the portfolio of products his company, Wire Products Inc. (WPI), has in its product line. The company specializes in making various products for consumer and industrial uses from hard laminated wire-coated with special paints. 1) WPI's "Wire Closet" products have been on the market for 10 years. Consumers install the wire shelves and closet rods themselves. The market leader, Closetmaid, has been selling similar products for more than 20 years, but so far the sales volume and profits for the market continue to grow. Recently, several new competitors have come into the market. 2) Three months ago, WPI entered the lawn and garden market with folding fences made with laminated wire and branded as "Wire Fold-Fence." Previously, WPI had never made fences or been a player in the lawn and garden market-although other companies have been making products in this market for years. However, Rob Rose has discovered that recent sales of wire garden fencing have leveled off and profits are declining overall. Still, WPI thinks it has some cost advantages and can grow its own sales and profits in this market. 3) WPI has just developed "Oil Wire," a new concept for the environmental cleanup market. Oil Wire is coated with a special material that cleans up oil spills. There has never been a product like this and WPI wants to quickly get the word out about its benefits. The product is now being rolled out in selective markets. 4) Another business product is "Wire Locker" used for secure storage by gymnasiums or companies. This style of locker has now gone out of fashion and most customers are finding better materials to use for lockers. Aggressive selling has helped Wire Locker's sales stay flat, but the total market for wire style lockers is only half of what it was 10 years ago. 5) WPI's "Wire Window" product is used as a security product to protect glass windows. It sells to homeowners and retailers looking for additional safety. WPI's sales of this product have dropped in recent years because competitors have introduced maintenance-free products. However, the overall market for this type of product continues to show good growth. 6) WPI is running concept tests of a new wire car-top carrier called "Wire Car Top." There are other car-top carrier products on the market, but WPI plans to include options in its carrier that will make it easier to load bikes, skis, and suitcases. "Wire Car Top" is also very easy to put on and take off of the car because of its light weight and ease-of-use features. The concept tests are helping WPI analysts develop rough estimates of costs, sales, and profits. 7) Another new product idea, tentatively called "Wire Tent," is being considered. It would use laminated wires to create a portable tent frame. This product is currently being evaluated to determine its fit with the company's objectives and external market trends. Rob is thinking about the product life cycle, where each product fits, and what he should be doing as part of his marketing plan for each of these products. For which product does WPI need to build primary demand?

Fashion-related products tend to have short life cycles.

Chris Carmine manages specific products and promotion at Bright-n-Shiny Toothbrush Company. Her job responsibility sounds like that of a ________.

The probable length of the product life cycle has little effect on strategy planning.

The _____ step in the new-product development process could involve research and development as well as engineering to design and build the physical part of the product.

In its efforts to support new-product development ideas within its own company, Google allows its employees to spend _______ percent of their time each week thinking about new product ideas, even if the ideas are not related to the employees' specific jobs.

As a product moves into the market maturity stage of the product life cycle:

The total quality management approach recognizes that defects are an inevitable part of mass production, and that the cost of replacing defective goods is just a cost of doing business.

Two keys to improving service quality are:

Rob Rose sat back to review the portfolio of products his company, Wire Products Inc. (WPI), has in its product line. The company specializes in making various products for consumer and industrial uses from hard laminated wire-coated with special paints. 1) WPI's "Wire Closet" products have been on the market for 10 years. Consumers install the wire shelves and closet rods themselves. The market leader, Closetmaid, has been selling similar products for more than 20 years, but so far the sales volume and profits for the market continue to grow. Recently, several new competitors have come into the market. 2) Three months ago, WPI entered the lawn and garden market with folding fences made with laminated wire and branded as "Wire Fold-Fence." Previously, WPI had never made fences or been a player in the lawn and garden market-although other companies have been making products in this market for years. However, Rob Rose has discovered that recent sales of wire garden fencing have leveled off and profits are declining overall. Still, WPI thinks it has some cost advantages and can grow its own sales and profits in this market. 3) WPI has just developed "Oil Wire," a new concept for the environmental cleanup market. Oil Wire is coated with a special material that cleans up oil spills. There has never been a product like this and WPI wants to quickly get the word out about its benefits. The product is now being rolled out in selective markets. 4) Another business product is "Wire Locker" used for secure storage by gymnasiums or companies. This style of locker has now gone out of fashion and most customers are finding better materials to use for lockers. Aggressive selling has helped Wire Locker's sales stay flat, but the total market for wire style lockers is only half of what it was 10 years ago. 5) WPI's "Wire Window" product is used as a security product to protect glass windows. It sells to homeowners and retailers looking for additional safety. WPI's sales of this product have dropped in recent years because competitors have introduced maintenance-free products. However, the overall market for this type of product continues to show good growth. 6) WPI is running concept tests of a new wire car-top carrier called "Wire Car Top." There are other car-top carrier products on the market, but WPI plans to include options in its carrier that will make it easier to load bikes, skis, and suitcases. "Wire Car Top" is also very easy to put on and take off of the car because of its light weight and ease-of-use features. The concept tests are helping WPI analysts develop rough estimates of costs, sales, and profits. 7) Another new product idea, tentatively called "Wire Tent," is being considered. It would use laminated wires to create a portable tent frame. This product is currently being evaluated to determine its fit with the company's objectives and external market trends. Rob is thinking about the product life cycle, where each product fits, and what he should be doing as part of his marketing plan for each of these products. In which stage of the product life cycle is "Oil Wire"?

The product life cycle concept is concerned with planning for product recycling to protect the environment.

Relative to most other countries, the U.S. has very strict product liability standards.

Wujin Chu, marketing manager for Innovative Electronics Products, reviews a S.W.O.T. analysis to help him evaluate four new product ideas his company is currently considering. Chu is operating in the ____ step of the new-product development process.

Which of the following is less likely to happen as a product moves through the later stages of the product life cycle?

Industry profits are largest in which of the following product life cycle stages?

The product life-cycle concept tells a manager how long each stage of the cycle will last.

The big cost of poor quality is the cost of

Regarding product life cycles, good marketing managers know that:

The more narrowly we define a product-market, the shorter the product life cycle because improved product ideas come along to replace the old.

National Family Opinion (NFO) contacts several hundred members of its consumer panel and provides them with a printed description of a new chewing gum and its package. Consumers are then given a survey containing several multiple-choice questions about their attitudes toward the new product, based on what they read in the description. The final survey question asks consumers to indicate the likelihood that they would purchase the product. NFO seems to be conducting a: