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How Early is Too Early? Product Launch Planning Part 2 |
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A few months ago we were called to a client location to help with their upcoming product launch. As we began to work through the launch deliverables and the schedule of activities, it became apparent that they had overlooked some important items. They looked at us in horror and said, “We should have called you six months ago—there’s no way we can launch on time.”
Unfortunately, this story is pretty typical. In this example, regulatory approvals of changing marketing collateral were one of the many critical details people often overlook when it comes to planning a product introduction. Because planning future deliverables or events, such as sales training or setting up the call center, aren’t on the “urgent” to do list when a product is still in the Concept phase, these details—and others—get shunted aside with a “we’ll fix it later” attitude, if they’re even thought about at all.
So how early should you start planning a product launch? Pick one of the following answers:
A. When you identify a possible opportunity
B. When you develop the preliminary Business Case
C. When you present the final Business Case
D. Once you’re in product development
If you chose “A,” then you’re in the minority. In a recent survey of product managers, only 24% believed that Launch Plans should be 80% complete by the time the Business Case has been finalized. (Another 24% said they didn’t know).
To be effective, high level launch planning may need to start as early as the first stage of your phase gate process (Concept Phase) and should be at least 90% complete when the product team is going forward with the business case (Definition Phase).
“But,” we can hear you thinking, “what kind of launch planning can I do when we’re not even sure if the product is going to move forward?” At this stage of the game you need to consider the following:
ARE YOU TARGETING A NEW MARKET?
If your new product or service idea is targeted at a new market, will you need to develop a distribution channel or modify an existing one? That hot new product may require a whole new skill set or market access that your existing channels don’t have. How long will it take to execute new agreements? Hire new sales people? Have your existing sales people develop relationships in the new market?
If an idea is worth pursuing, you should have an idea of the amount of investment and time required to access that new market, one of the fundamental screens in Concept.
PRODUCT BRANDING
It’s not too early to consider the name of the product. One product manager found out, four months before launch, that the name proposed for his company’s product had already been trademarked by another company. Oops. The PM had to scramble to find a new name and spent hours researching to be sure that the new name wasn’t taken. Marketing Communications (MarCom) had to redo the product logo and go back and rewrite the collateral pieces in progress.
THE VALUE PROPOSITION
Recently a Marcom manager attended our Fundamentals of Product Management training class. At the end of the workshop she said, “A lot of this doesn’t apply to my job, but one thing did—the section on product launches. Now I know when I need to get involved. And I know the questions to ask!”
What this woman was referring to is the best practice of developing a value proposition at Concept, not just before MarCom is writing the product brochure and you’re well into Development. Developing the value prop early in the game gives you a number of advantages including:
1. Getting the buy in on the value proposition from the cross functional and management teams. Starting discussions early enough ensures your value prop matches high-level business objectives and resonates with Sales. If it doesn’t, maybe it’s not worth pursuing.
2. Developing the image. One reason you want MarCom involved at Concept is because they need time to envision how they’ll communicate your value prop and the kinds of images they need. This creative process can take two to three months as MarCom may need time to brainstorm and kick around ideas.
CREATE A PRODUCT LAUNCH PROJECT PLAN
From our past lives as product managers and from our continued benchmarking with clients, we know that product development completion dates are often wrong, so products are delayed for launch. As a result, organizations get conditioned to wait to plan launch activities until the product is ready. However, there’s a better way.
The launch deliverables checklist can be extensive. Depending on how important the product or service being launched (and therefore how significant the launch), sometimes these activities have to be planned anywhere from 12 to 18 months in advance. So start early, working with a few people on your cross functional team to sketch out what needs to be done and the estimated timing it will take. When the product is ready, you’ll be poised for execution instead of just starting your planning.
GET EXPERIENCE ON YOUR TEAM
The more important the product or service being launched, the more experienced a team you will need. Not only do team members have specific deliverables, they’re also responsible for making sure their functional organization buys into the launch plan and is prepared to support the launch the way the team member promised.
As you can see, planning a product launch is a lot more than simply determining where you’ll have the sales meeting and working with Marcom on the brochure. Without a finalized launch plan by the time you ask for development dollars, the product launch and its desired outcomes expose your business to unnecessary risk and product failure.
For additional information about product launches, refer to our Winter 2007 Best in Class newsletter article, “Product Launch Success: It’s All in the Post Launch Audit”.
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