Chapter 10. Product Management and New−Product Development. When You Finish This Chapter, You Should: 1. Understand how product life cycles affect strategy planning. 2. Know what is involved in designing new products and what “new products” really are. | I Text Perreault-McCarthy Basic Marketing A Global-Managerial Approach 14 e 10. Product Management and New-Product Development The McGraw-Hill Companies 2002 When You Finish This Chapter You Should 1. Understand how product life cycles affect strategy planning. Chapter Ten Product 2. Know what is involved in designing new products and what new products really are. 3. Understand the new-product development process. Management and New-Product 4. See why product liability must be considered in screening new products. Development 5. Understand the need for product or brand managers. 6. Understand the important new terms shown in red . In today s markets a few years can bring a lot of changes. When Palm introduced its first personal digital assistant PDA in the mid 1990s it was a really new product concept even in the eyes of its target market of gadget-loving on-the-go executives. It didn t do anything radical but it did a few important things really well. It could store thousands of names and addresses track expenses schedule meetings and priorities and program calculations. And it was easy to use which helped Palm sell a million units in just the first two years. As sales growth accelerated Palm introduced new models with more features like its connected organizer that could beam data to another Palm or a computer and even connect to e-mail anywhere anytime. During those early years Palm had little direct competition. place promotion price produc Perreault-McCarthy Basic Marketing A Global-Managerial Approach 14 e 10. Product Management and New-Product Development Text The McGraw-Hill Companies 2002 Customers around the world bought 13 million PDAs in five years and 75 percent of them were Palms. Business customers were not very price-sensitive so without much competition Palm also enjoyed great profit margins. Palm s marketing plan for its new m500 series was to improve graphics and power and add modular features like a digital camera and digital .
