new product research definition

What is Product Research? Methods, Process, and Benefits

Product research is a vital initial stage that starts well before the product development process . Successful product research teaches product teams about 

• how to shape a product idea
• what similar products there are on the market already
• what is the best way to develop and advertise the product
• whether the product will be a success in its market

The process of product research will also teach you about what customers want and how to adjust your strategy to meet their needs. Surveys are a great tool to get this process started.

But product research does not just happen in the initial stages of product development. Well-seasoned product managers know that the process should be continuous. Businesses that perform best conduct regular product research to stay ahead of their competitors .

Without proper product research your chances of success, like your product decisions , will be random. Learn from the market and your customers to perform data-driven and customer-centric decisions.

Product research methods

The optimal method of gathering product research data will vary depending on whether you are launching a completely new product or a product update.

If you are working on new features for an existing product, your goal is to examine product satisfaction

• customer needs and pain points
• how those needs have changed over time
• how users are adopting new features

Then use this information to decide which initiatives you should prioritize and what to concentrate on within the updates.

If, however, you are developing an entirely new product, you likely won’t yet have a customer base or any historical information about user behavior. You’ll have to concentrate on learning about competitors and the existing market your product will fit into.

Let’s have a look at some ways you can obtain this information.

Product surveys are a great way to learn how existing and potential customers feel about your product. 

These surveys can include questions about what consumers think of your product

• what frustrates them the most
• what the most needed improvements include
• what their favorite features are, and more.
• You can also gain insights into how these aspects compare to that of your competitors.

Product surveys can be sent via email or link , in-app , in-product , or through your website . This is probably the most convenient, affordable, and effort-efficient way of gathering information to fuel your product research.

Another kind of survey that can prove useful is a quarterly-basis NPS survey . The open follow-up question can be a great source of new product and feature ideas.

You can also run in-product surveys to see what potential struggles your customers come across. Pair this with session recordings and heatmaps to get a complete picture. Survicate integrates with products like FullStory and SessionCam to facilitate this process.

💡 YOU MAY BE INTERESTED IN: After scenario questionnaire survey template

Customer interviews

At Survicate, we run product research surveys in which we ask customers about their needs. The surveys end with the following question:

“Would you be interested in talking with our team once we work on that feature?”

That way, we can recruit candidates for user interviews and usability testing .

This feedback from sales calls is a great way to get qualitative data on product ideas and concepts.

Lastly, we use Intercom conversations with customers to gather additional feedback and input on silent launches. Respondent attributes identify customers who would be good candidates for product testing .

Concept testing

Concept testing is the process of surveying users about a potential product . You can learn how they feel about it and whether they would be willing to purchase such a product were it available on the market.

This method is very versatile, as it can happen online, over the phone, or through real-life interviews. It can be difficult to obtain a sample of potential clients willing to provide you with feedback, so we recommend using a customer feedback tool to facilitate the process.

Focus groups

You can find focus groups of people who already use a product similar to the one you are thinking of developing. You can enquire about things like an optimal price , the most important features , and features they are missing in their current solution.

This can help you estimate your budget, product development strategy, spending, and profit margins. You can also find out about the qualities of your product that will make it unique and outbid your competitors.

To eliminate bias , choose third-party interviews or online surveys .

Usability testing and demos

Conduct product testing once you create a test model of your product. Show it to potential customers to get their feedback. This can also include having them watch a demo if you don’t yet have a beta version of your idea.

As above, surveys can be a great way of learning about their experience.

When to perform product research

Product research usually happens at these four stages of a product’s (or product update’s) lifecycle.

Before launch

Product research before launch lets you figure out what the competitive market is like, what features are missing but in demand, and what aspects of your product you should prioritize.

Testing and feedback

Once you have a beta version of your product, you can perform testing. This will help you understand how customers perceive your product or its new iterations, what they like and don’t like, and how you can still improve your product.

Soft launch

A soft launch means releasing the product to a part of your customer base to see how it will work in a “real world environment”. At this stage, there is usually still no advertising, so research should focus on usability and value rather than pricing or market fit .

Post-launch

Product research after launch should focus on customers’ behavior, satisfaction , and potential struggles.

Product research process 

Product research is essentially studying users to learn their needs and expectations for your product. Start with general information about the competitor landscape and end with detailed data like pricing , subscription plans, and visual design.

Analyze the competitive landscape

A part of product research should always include an analysis of your competitors' products, audiences, and processes.

Even if you are the first to market, you’ll have some indirect competition you need to be aware of or maybe even drive inspiration from. You’ll also likely need to do extra research to ensure there is in fact a demand for your product.

The existence of competitors is not always a bad thing. It at least confirms that the market has been validated. But you will need to come up with ways to differentiate your product and break through the crowd.

Find out how competitors reach their audience and what they do to retain customers for as long as possible.

Evaluate the size of your market

The first step in determining your market size is defining your potential customer . You have to know who you are going to cater to in order to estimate how large that target market is.

We recommend running a demographic survey among users of your competitors.

Market segmentation research

Once you have an idea of who your customers are or are going to be, you can categorize them into segments based on specific characteristics.

This will help you figure out the optimal ways of reaching them, meeting their needs and expectations, understanding struggle points, and learning about their goals.

Product feedback

Test your product before launching it. Use different marketing strategies, pricing options, and distribution methods to learn what conditions your product will thrive in.

We have many product feedback surveys that can help evaluate key aspects of your idea. Most notably, examine your users’ onboarding process …

… product experience …

…and usability of your product .

Price testing 

The price is a huge aspect of your product. Of course, you want to be as competitive as possible, but at the same time, you want to make the biggest profits possible.

Use a product pricing survey to learn about demand elasticity and the relationship between product demand and pricing.

Customer research

Learning about your customers or who your customers will be can help you make better product development and advertising decisions.

For example, you may find you have an international audience, in which case it may make sense to make your product or service available in multiple languages . 

Find out who your existing customers are to come up with ways to reach new potential clients.

You can also query customers who have recently stopped using your product to learn about ways of preventing churn .

Ask your customers about features they are missing in your product . If they are considering switching to a competitor, you may be able to prevent this by ensuring them you are working on an update.

And always stay on top of customer satisfaction to learn when you need to make changes to your product or its aspects.

Automate your product research

Product research and development should be a continuous process. In the modern world, it’s not enough to develop a great product and call it a day . Use a great product feedback tool to keep gathering customer insights that will drive growth to your business.

With a tool like Survicate, you can automate your surveys to be sent at regular intervals as to reduce your employees’ workload. 

All results are compiled in one place - our dashboard. The analysis panel generates survey reports in real-time.

You can also use ready-made visuals to get information across your entire team.

Segment results

Product research does not end with successfully gathered data. The last step is to use it to fuel product decisions that will realistically improve your product and customer experience , and drive brand growth.

Segmentation of results should be based on business goals and your KPIs. This step ensures data is not wasted and reaches appropriate teams. It will also help plan short-term and long-term goals so you know what data you might need in the future.

For example, tracking user pain points that an update didn’t solve might be helpful in the future when building new features. Documenting what went well during your last product update will help you design your roadmap more efficiently.

Benefits of successful product research

Let’s quickly run through what you can gain through thorough product research.

Identify user needs that your product can solve

Product research will not only help you boost innovation within your product, but it will keep your accuracy in check, too. You’ll be sure that the changes you are implementing actually align with user needs.

Understand the struggles and pain points of your customers

While customer feedback like your CSAT and CES scores are great ways to find pain points, you have to remember they are tied to your customer service and are solicited in nature.

No great business strategy should rely on great customer service to fix issues with the product setup. Make sure you are surveying your customers on the developments they’d like to see. Product research also provides you with behavioral data and insights to build optimal solutions.

Identify potential wins that will differentiate you from the competition

Product research will also help you gain a competitive edge. Researching the market and competitive landscape with help uncover market gaps you can fill with new features or products.

Design modifications in your roadmap to successfully hit KPIs

Successful product research will make prioritization simpler and more efficient. You’ll know what features users want and which ones make them consider leaving you for a competitor.

You can make sure the most important changes are lined up in the near future and your backlog is optimized. The entire team will be aware of which initiatives to work on next to improve customer satisfaction .

Use Survicate to make your product research effective

The best way to learn about your customers’ needs is to understand their behavior in context. Place surveys and feedback widgets in high-traffic visitor points for optimal feedback.

Survicate offers both website and in-product surveys to help you gain insights into customer needs, pain points, and feature ideas. There are over 125 survey templates that go well beyond your usual NPS , CSAT , and CES campaigns.

💡 YOU MAY ALSO BE INTERESTED IN: Product research survey template

Survicate integrations with tools like Slack also make closing the loop an automated process. Set up notifications and communicate with customers immediately after receiving responses.

Wrapping up

Product management centres around product feedback . If you don’t take advantage of this process, you are at risk of missing users' needs and wasting your product development budget.

Understand what will make your customers happy and build a customer-centric product that will break through the competition. Organize your product research with Survicate to get insightful and contextual customer experience data .

The free trial offers 10 days of access to Business plan features and up to 25 survey responses. Sign up today!

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• Product-led Growth

What is Product Research: A Guide for Founders

I don’t think there’s ever been a founder who succeeded with the first iteration of their product idea. For most of us, building a product means constant discovery and iteration, or product research , for short. 

In this guide, I’ll explain what product research is and show you the best methods to do product research for your startup.

And there’s a very good reason for you to keep on reading…

We, founders, have really just one objective, after all – To create a product that will pretty much rock our customers’ worlds. 

Sure, we can say that we want to exit and get a bucket load of cash for our product. 

Or that we want to conquer the world. 

Or build another SaaS unicorn…

And even if that is the case, we still need to build that perfect product first. Perfect in a sense that our customers won’t be able to live without it. 

The thing is – It’s almost impossible to do it right off the bat. No matter what ideas we have, we still need more insights, data, and feedback to fine-tune it. And the only way to get it is through product research. 

Below, I’ve included what I know about it, and what I’ve done to create Refiner. Full disclaimer, I also plugged my product there because, let’s be fair, it does help with product research too. 

But on the whole, the below guide contains what you need to know about product research to refine your idea and build a product that’ll delight your audience. 

So, let’s get on with it, then. 

What does it really mean to conduct product research?

I ask this because the term – product research – could, at first, be misleading.

It’s easy to consider it referring to the process of researching products to buy, for example but that’s not it. 

So what is product research? Various definitions call it a process focusing on gathering insights and information that, once analyzed, can help us build and improve our products.

There is far more in making it happen, of course. However, on the whole, I think that’s probably the easiest way to explain what product research is. 

There are several other reasons to conduct product research beyond just learning what your users want. 

• Product research is your gateway to becoming a user-centric company. It’s how you understand the target audience, their needs, pain points, and desires, and develop products that meet those requirements, rather than do what you’d like them to do.
• Secondly, product research also helps you validate ideas and assumptions. This last item is of particular interest here. After all, how often do we come up with ideas, and then rationalize them in our minds by assuming certain things about our audience or their needs? Now, these assumptions may as well be true. But you can only know that if you’ve validated them through product research. 
• Thanks to different product research methods (more on those in just a moment), we get to find out which features our audience really want us to build. And needless to say, that’s a huge help that can also prevent us from spending time and effort on the wrong feature. 
• Finally, product analysis can tell us a whole lot about our competitors , far more than other research methods could uncover. Why? Because through product research, you learn what your customers think of the competition. You discover how they perceive other similar products on the market, what value they (meaning, your customers) think those products deliver, and the reasons why they could consider using those products. 

Worth to note – Product research is an iterative process. It’s not something you do once and then, forget about it but a continuous process that helps you refine anything from questions you ask to insights you collect.

As a result, product research is also quite an undertaking. It’s not something you should be doing on a whim, or to plug leaks in your funnel. Instead, product research is a process you should do continuously, and tap into those insights when you need data to fuel a specific project (like plugging leaks in a funnel, for example.)

In other words, product research is where you continuously collect data that you then turn to when needed, not the other way around. 

So, how do you do it, then? How do you collect product research data?

Product research methods

Let me start by saying that there is no single, ideal product research method. It’s also impossible to tell which product research method is better than others, and so on. All of the methods I’ve listed below work exceptionally well in their respective best use case scenarios. 

But as you can imagine, I’m still a little biased towards surveys. That’s what my product, Refiner , does, after all. Surveys are also the method I’ve used the most in the past, and that’s what helped me drive the development of Refiner.

Nonetheless, here are all the most popular product research methods, including surveys, of course. 

Surveys: Surveys rely on you sending questionnaires to a pre-selected audience segment to collect quantitative and qualitative data about those people’s opinions, insights, and so on. 

What makes surveys so incredible for product research is their:

• Wide reach – You can send a survey to a large number of people, and collect insights from them without much effort. 
• Scalability – Similarly, surveys don’t require additional time or effort from you to scale the research. 
• Low cost – Again, surveys are relatively inexpensive to run. 

Some of the most common product research surveys include:

• NPS – a survey that allows you to evaluate the customers’ attitudes towards your product. 
• CSAT , which helps you learn more about your customer satisfaction and draw actionable insights based on that.
• CES which reveals how easy (or not) customers find your product to use. 

Here’s an example of an NPS survey used in product research.

FEATURED READING: How to run a perfect customer survey for a digital product

User Interviews: This method is all about sitting down with your customers one-on-one to discuss their needs, uncover pain points, or their product preferences. User interviews are all about asking open-ended questions and letting the person reveal their opinions. Unfortunately, this makes it a time-consuming method for product research, particularly if compared with surveys. 

Focus groups: Running a focus group is like conducting user interviews at scale. In this method, you bring a small group of users together to discuss your product, provide feedback on issues you want to research, and so on.

Usability testing: This method focuses on observing users as they interact with the product (or its prototypes.) By observing how users complete predefined actions in the product, you can identify usability issues and gather insights for improvement.

User behavior tracking: In this method, you’re also drawing conclusions based on user behavior. However, unlike usability testing, behavioral tracking focuses on analyzing data that you collect using different user behavior tracking tools (like Hotjar, for example) to understand user behavior, spot patterns, and collect benchmarks.

A/B testing: A/B or split tests allow you to uncover the audience’s preferences by eliminating product or UI elements that fail to engage them successfully. In this product research method, you present different versions of a product to different user segments and monitor their engagement with those to determine which variation performs better.

Customer journey mapping: This method relies less on collecting specific insights than using your data so far to understand the entire customer journey, from initial product discovery to post-purchase experience. This is an important product research method, as it allows you to map pain points to specific stages of the buyer’s journey, and spot opportunities for improvement.

How product research works in practice – Key elements of a product research project

It’s quite easy to assume that to launch a product research project, you just need to, a.) pick a research method, and b.) figure out how to use it, and off you go but no, that’s not how it works.

Successful product research strategy relies on several key elements:

Clearly defined objectives

It’s as obvious as it sounds, actually. For your project to work out, you need to set specific objectives and communicate them in a clear and understandable way. These objectives will guide the entire project, from selecting the target audience, research method, to what you’re going to do with the data. 

Specific target audience

Again, quite an obvious element but also, often one that we tend to forget about. Naturally, we always have an audience for research. There is no such project without it, after all. But at the same time, we often tend to jump in and invite all customers for research, whereas we should be gathering insights from a specific audience or customer segment only.

This product research element focuses on selecting the right people who have the insights and knowledge that you seek. For example, if you’re evaluating advanced product functionality, you should focus exclusively on experienced users. New users mightn’t have even discovered those advanced features. And even if they did, their level of product knowledge mightn’t be sufficient for them to provide any meaningful insights for your research. 

Research method

In most cases, once you set clear objectives, and pick the target audience that has insights to help you achieve those, choosing the research method is relatively easy. But you still have to do it. And I recommend that you evaluate all potential options (we’ve covered them above,) and select the method that’s the most appropriate for your goals and the audience. 

TIP: It pays off to select several research methods sometimes. For example, if your goal is to improve the usability of your interface, you might start by tracking user behavior to identify potential challenges users experience. Then, hold usability sessions to confirm your assumptions, and finally, interview most engaged users about their challenges. 

Notice how each method in this example allows you to go deeper into the problem. You start by collecting data that allows you to make hypotheses about potential usability problems. You, then, observe how users engage with those tasks in real-life, and finally, you get their opinion about those challenges. 

Research instruments

I have to be honest – I’m not particularly fond of this label, research instrument. It’s quite misleading. But that’s what it is so I’m sticking with it here too. However, what we really mean by research instruments are materials that you’re going to use in the research methods you’ve selected. 

These can be questions that you’ll be asking customers to answer in a survey, tasks for the usability session, questions for user interviews, and so on. 

And needless to say, these are hugely important to prepare upfront, test, validate, and only put into use when you’re absolutely certain that they can deliver the insights you’re after without causing any form of bias.

Panel recruitment

In an earlier step, you’ve selected your target audience. Now, you need to recruit at least some of those people to participate in your product research. How you’re going to do it will largely depend on the research method you’ve selected. 

For example, if you’re using behavioral data like heatmaps, then you don’t really need to recruit anyone for the study. Whatever heatmap software you’ll be using will collect the data for you. 

If you run a survey, then you, most likely, will email it or display the survey in-app to your customer segment. Again, it’s not going to take much time and effort. 

But the situation is different if you plan to run a user group, for example. In this case, you need to go through a formal process of approaching participants, getting their consent to participate in the study, and so on. 

IMPORTANT: Note I mentioned collecting user consent before research. This is a hugely important step to remember, particularly in the face of GDPR and similar privacy laws. 

As Phil Hesketh of ConsentKit explains :

“To ensure your research panel is compliant with data protection regulations in your country or state, it’s essential that you get consent from each panelist to collect and store their personal information.

You’ll need to get consent when a person agrees to join your panel for the purposes of recruiting for research, and you’ll need to ask for consent again when they agree to take part in a specific project.”

Data collection

This element is all about launching your research method to collect the data. Simply. 

Data analysis and insights synthesis

In a typical product research project, you collect data for a specified period of time, after which you begin to analyze and synthesize that information. The goal here is to identify patterns, trends, and specific insights within the data, and document those so that you have a clear record of your findings.

Actionable insights

The project, typically, concludes not with documented data but a list of actionable recommendations drawn from it. In other words, with product research, you complete a full circle, starting with a problem, conducting research to generate data, and ending up facing the same problem again. This time, however, you’re equipped with insights and actionable recommendations to tackle it successfully. 

And that’s it

That’s a typical product research project in a nutshell. 

Naturally, there is more to each of its elements than I was able to fit into this guide. But I’m hoping that I was able to provide you with a solid foundation and general understanding of the process. 

Also, if you’re interested in digging deeper into how to use surveys for product research, I recommend the my other guides:

• Product discovery process – the do’s and don’ts
• How to collect and measure user feedback for a digital product
• How to use UX research surveys for product development
• In-app feedback – How to capture user feedback within your app
• 15 best product feedback tools to help you improve your app

And if you want to see how Refiner, my survey software, could help you run successful product research surveys, sign up for a free trial or check out these live survey demos . 

Related posts

This is How You Run a Perfect Customer Survey for a Digital Product

12 Customer Effort Score Questions to Use Right Away (with Examples)

How to Calculate and Measure the Customer Effort Score in SaaS

What is a Customer Effort Score: Everything You Need to Know About CES Surveys

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A step-by-step guide to the product research process

A strong product research process ensures product teams maximize resources, meet key business goals, and make confident decisions that will deliver successful products and features to create customer delight.

But, how do you conduct effective product research?

Just as there’s no single way to develop a product, no single research process fits all product teams. But there are key steps that will help you balance business goals and user needs for actionable product research . 

This article takes you through the factors you should consider to tailor product research to your desired outcomes and provides a step-by-by-step guide to doing research right.

Use Hotjar to streamline your product research process

Hotjar offers product teams a rich stream of quantitative and qualitative data that keeps you connected to user needs at every stage of research.

What to consider before starting product research

Before jumping into the research process , product managers prepare their team. Take time to consider the why and determine how you can design the process to meet your unique product requirements. 

Reflect on:

Why you’re doing the research

Get connected with the deep purpose of your research: what you need to understand to create a profitable and effective product .

Determine specific outcomes of the research process.

During the early product discovery stages, generating new product ideas for innovation and getting to know your users better will serve as a solid foundation throughout the research process. At later stages, look for concrete feedback on a new product, or possible upgrades and feature updates for an existing product. The why behind the research should guide your process. 

Categorizing your users

Determining customer needs and segmenting users are crucial steps that impact the success of any product research strategy. 

You might use a random sample of potential or existing customers; or segment users according to region, industry, or other criteria to spot patterns across different demographics.

Trial users can give immediate product feedback, which is usually incredibly easy to implement (a new theme, for example) or incredibly difficult, like an entirely new functionality or platform for your product. Your long-time users can give nuanced feedback, but they overlook what doesn't work due to their expertise.

Finding that middle ground of users who like what you offer but aren't stuck to your brand is essential. These users appreciate being treated like their insights matter most—because they do.

Finding impartial user insights can be tricky since many tools track users who’ve been paid or incentivized to click through to your website or product. Product experience insights software like Hotjar can help by providing organic, unbiased user data that gives you a clear picture of your customer experience (CX) .

Pro tip: Hotjar Highlights lets you sort and curate user insights and attributes, and share them with your product team. You can also watch Session Recordings of users from specific countries or industries—or filter recordings to see only satisfied or dissatisfied user experiences, which can provide valuable information on what’s working (and what’s not).

A Hotjar Session Recording

Your core business goals 

The best product research processes overlap with the overall organizational vision, so update your research goals in line with company goals to ensure alignment. 

Designing your research process with cross-functional collaboration in mind is a great way to eliminate any communication issues, ensure all departments collect data that tests product profitability, business goals, and user satisfaction.

 Your team’s methodology

Different product methodologies emphasize different aspects of product research throughout its lifecycle, so it’s important to consider techniques that will fit your team’s working stages.

Teams who use waterfall methodologies usually rely on bursts of intense research before development and again during pre-launch. They also make a clear distinction between the product’s research and development phases. 

Teams who use agile, lean, or DevOps methods usually integrate research with the broader product development process, engaging in continuous discovery methods. 

Whatever your methodology, infuse research into every stage of the product lifecycle to achieve business goals like increased revenue, acquisitions, and user adoption.

Choosing which research tools to use

When you’re deciding how to do product research, you’ll need to consider your budget and company size to pick out your tool stack.

Manual research techniques like user interviews can be time-consuming and cost-intensive, but useful to forge a personal connection with users and ask improvised questions based on their responses.

Automated research tools (like Hotjar 👋) increase speed, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness, and reduce human error. They allow you to reach a larger target audience and ensure you’re getting clean, unbiased product feedback —in person, users are more likely to feel pressure to compliment your product or underplay their concerns, but with tools like Hotjar, you’ll get genuine, in-the-moment feedback from users as they engage with your product. 

Which team members will contribute

Involve different team members at each stage of the product workflow. For example, when you’re validating product ideas, you may want to include marketing and technical departments; and when you’re testing product usability , you may want to rely on the expertise of your engineers. 

It’s also important to consider what research other departments have done before launching your own process, so you don’t waste resources duplicating generic market research. 

8 steps for amazing product research

Amazing product research is all about doing smart research to unearth effective insights without getting lost in an information overload that derails your product workflow .  

Follow these eight steps to guide your product research strategies to achieve valuable, actionable product insights that will inform your product’s entire lifecycle, from ideation to execution. 

1. Define your research goals

First, set your high-level goals, which should test business objectives as well as customer-centric product discovery. These are often drawn directly from the product vision and strategy.

Then, create attainable, specific goals or questions for your team to focus on during each stage of their research. This might include: 

Conducting market research for the product’s adoption before its launch

Identifying areas where key features can be improved after the product launch

Evaluating the product’s performance throughout the product lifecycle

2. Understand your users

User needs are at the center of effective product research processes. 

Engage in user discovery—identify and understand your customer—as early as possible , even before you have definite product or feature ideas. Open-ended user research is a key source of product inspiration and innovation, and an essential step in determining product-market fit .

Then, when you have product proposals, prototypes, or a minimum viable product ( MVP) , you can start seeking more specific feedback. 

User research is all about interacting with your current or potential users and learning what they want and need . Developing a user-centric culture of ongoing research will help you gauge the market demand, position your product against the competition, and generate customer delight .

To create a user-centric research culture, conduct user interviews and create user personas. You can also connect more passively with your user demographic by looking at forums, Facebook groups, or sites like Reddit that are used by your customer niche. 

The more organic the research process, the better. It’s ideal to catch users in situations where they answer by instinct instead of having carefully crafted answers. It's what they say instinctively that leads to better product solutions.

Pro tip: use Feedback widgets to gather user feedback in a non-invasive way. 

Hotjar’s Feedback widgets are integrated into the product interface , so users can give quick feedback and then carry on with their tasks. This means you can survey your users and gain valuable insights by learning what they’re thinking and feeling as they interact with the product.

A Hotjar feedback widget

3. Do market research for your product 

Run thorough competitive and comparative analyses to test the business potential of your product against other solutions on the market , and engage in opportunity mapping to get stakeholder buy-in.

You can also use historical market data and trade reports to predict potential profitability and run keyword research to understand users and what potential customers are searching for to generate product ideas.

Once you’ve validated whether there’s a viable market for your product and determined how saturated that target market is, focus on your product’s unique selling points.

Pro tip: even if you already have a product established in a specific market, make sure to assess the market periodically. Markets and competitors change, and making assumptions because of your initial research processes can be a costly mistake. Work with your marketing team here to validate your ideas and avoid guesswork.

Evaluate your product regularly against the industry by creating a value curve. The value curve plots the product offerings currently available in the market on one axis, and the factors the industry is competing on and investing in heavily on the other. This can help you spot market opportunities, ensure product relevance, and get ideas for features you could add to increase user demand and open up new user bases.

Check out how Gavin increased conversions for his lead generation agency by 42% with Hotjar.

 4. Get to know industry trends

Next, combine your understanding of your users and market with research on technology trends that may affect user expectations of your product or its long-term viability. 

Stay on top of trends by regularly engaging with tech cultures —read trade magazines and news sites, listen to tech news podcasts, and follow key trendspotters on social media and specialist forums. You can also use tools like Google Trends , Trend Hunter , and PSFK . 

Another key source of tech trend information is your engineering team . Chances are, you have plenty of techies on your team who are up to speed on different aspects of technology and what’s forecasted to change.

Pro tip: rigorously analyze trends and put them into context to understand what has staying power, as you avoid jumping on every passing fad. Create a learning culture that embraces experimentation and gives team members the opportunity to share their knowledge. 

Analyze the latest trending topics and projects in mainstream open-source communities across the Internet such as GitHub. These communities are an incredible resource for identifying tech trends that are sustainable, disruptive, and have immense staying power. 

It's also important to subscribe to prominent tech publications and leading technology platforms such as Azure and AWS to get the latest tech news and new feature announcements delivered directly to your inbox. This way, your product team is always in the know about the most important tech trends that are shaping product development and product markets.

5. Validate ideas with current or potential users

Once you’ve developed a strong sense of your users, market, and technology, it’s time to start testing concrete ideas and solutions. 

Based on your early research, identify possible products, features, or upgrades that could meet user needs as well as business goals. Then, run concept testing to evaluate the user experience.

First, identify key users or user types to test. Recruit participants for customer interviews or focus groups, or deploy Hotjar Surveys , Incoming Feedback tools, and Session Recordings to test ideas with existing users. 

Then, ask questions or set tasks and observe user responses. You may just want to explain concepts to users at this stage—or you can use wireframes or mockups; or, at later stages, prototypes or MVPs. 

Make sure you account for confirmation bias and false-positive responses from users when designing the validation process. Include open- and closed-ended questions and use measures like purchase intent to determine customer adoption.

Pro tip: use fake door testing to gauge interest in new features across your existing user base. 

In fake door tests, you show users a call-to-action for a product action that doesn’t exist yet. Once they click to perform the action, they’ll be taken to a page that explains this feature isn’t available yet—you may also choose to include a short survey on this page to learn more about their interest. By reviewing answers to survey questions and the click-through rate , product teams can quickly validate ideas for new features or improvements with users.

6. Test your MVP

The next step in your product research process is to develop a Minimum Viable Product based on validated ideas and run tests to improve subsequent iterations. 

This is a critical stage in product research that you shouldn’t skip. Waiting for the fully developed product before running tests makes it harder to fix software and prioritize bug issues, causing major delays. 

Quality assurance (QA) testing, regression testing, and performance testing check the MVP’s functionality and show developers where they need to make product changes . 

User tests are also key at this stage. Different types of product testing , like tree testing and card sorting, can confirm whether users can easily navigate your product to find the functionality they need. 

A/B tests and multivariate tests , where you split your user base into groups and give them different versions of a product or feature, can help you decide which iteration to run with. Hotjar Heatmaps allow you to easily compare where users click and scroll on different versions of the product.

7. Continue research after the product launch

Consider doing a soft launch—or even canary deployment—where you release new products or features to a small group of users

Gather data to weed out bugs

Finally, adapt the product based on user responses

Then you can roll it out to all users.

But even once you’ve launched the final product, your research isn’t over. The best product teams stay connected with their users and regularly analyze market trends and tech changes.

After the product is released, either through a soft launch or a regular launch, implementing a data-driven approach to the go-to-market strategy is crucial in parsing consumer reports and validating trends and customer opinions.

Continuous research ensures that your product stays relevant and successfully meets customer needs, which will boost user metrics and business metrics alike.

So how can you continue your research throughout the product lifecycle? 

Watch session recordings to spot blockers and bugs where users are rage clicking or dropping off the product journey

Use heatmaps to understand which product elements are most popular—and unpopular—with users

Measure product analytics like click-through rate (CTR) and product conversion rate

Stay up to date on industry and market trends 

Incorporate regular opportunities for cross-team discussions to get different research perspectives

Schedule regular user and customer interviews

Use product experience insights tools like Hotjar to give you a steady stream of user feedback through Surveys and Feedback widgets

8. Turn research into action

The final step in any product research process is to organize your research and turn insights into action. 

Curate your research into specific, actionable themes to cut through the noise and gather valuable, user-centric insights.

Then, use your research to establish a strong product strategy and roadmap to guide your product development process. Make sure you compare the strategy and roadmap with new research at regular intervals and update where needed, though it’s important to strike a balance: these documents should be dynamic but relatively stable touchpoints.  

Your product research should also drive your day-to-day decisions and product backlog management , and form the basis of your product storytelling to help get stakeholder buy-in. 

Why creating a user-centric research culture is essential

Remember: at heart, all product research is user research. 

Product teams who are endlessly curious about their users—who they are, what they need, how they experience your product—can better meet the demands of an ever-evolving market, inspire customer loyalty, and increase their Net Promoter Score (NPS) . With a learning mindset and a commitment to customer-centric product discovery, you can transform research into innovation and sustainable business growth .

FAQs on the product research process

What is product research.

Product research is the process of gathering data about your product’s purpose, intended users, and market to meet user needs and achieve business goals.

What are the steps in the product research process?

The 8 steps in an effective product research process are: 

1) Define your research goals

2) Understand your users

3) Do market research for your product

4) Get to know industry trends

5) Validate ideas with current or potential users

6) Test your MVP

7) Continue research after the product launch

8) Turn research into action

Why is product research important?

Strong product research is critical to product management because: 

It ensures the product will meet customer needs and hit business targets 

It helps product managers (PMs) develop a data-informed product vision, strategy, and roadmap

It helps PMs make confident decisions on the product backlog and day-to-day tasks

It keeps the product team motivated and connected with the purpose of their work 

It helps the product team communicate product value to stakeholders to get buy-in and secure resources

Prioritize product features

Previous chapter

Guide index

A practical guide to product development research

Understanding your target customers' needs and behaviours is a crucial step in the new product development process. Here we explore product development research and how it can give your brand the direction is needs.

What is product development research?

Why is product development research important, stages of product development research, types of product development testing.

Product development research is the process of finding out how the product or feature you’re currently working on is progressing, whether there are any changes in your target audience’s needs and whether you need to make any adjustments to the product.

Depending on where you are in your product’s life cycle will dictate the kind of product development research you do and how it might impact your overall product development process.

In your product research process you can find out things like what features customers might be willing to pay more for, or figuring out how you can increase customer loyalty. And you might want to investigate a decline in interest or sales to make sure your product maintains success.

Whatever stage your product development is at, you’ll definitely want to keep track of its progress and stay on top of any emerging trends that might affect your product life cycle. You can do all of this with research into your product development.

It’s vital for businesses to develop products that fulfil the needs and desires of customers. This is what will keep customers happy and loyal, and it’ll ensure that the business’s products remain successful, and, better still, become even more successful.

Gauging market demand through product development research – easily done with platforms like Attest – is a surefire way to get to the root of what consumers want, allowing you to offer them truly useful and desirable products.

Surveying your target audience throughout your product development process, from its initial stages through to its final stage, launch and future iterations, is key to staying on top of trends and changes in customer needs.

Your marketing research and exploratory research should reveal the insights you need to continue reaching and satisfying your target customers. You’ll hear opinions directly from your customers, meaning that the products you go on to develop will be made for and with your customers.

Launch your product development research

Attest’s advanced market research platform and quick turnaround of survey results help you take the guesswork out of product development.

There are a few key stages of the product development research process that you should know about to make sure you create successful products that are right for your customers.

Take a look at our intro to the new product development market research (NPD) process, summarising the 9 key steps to explore throughout your project:

Exploratory

Exploratory research is what usually happens at the earliest stage of the new product development process.

During this stage you might not necessarily know what your outcome will be, what your product will look like, how exactly it’ll address potential customers’ needs and ensure customer satisfaction. This is when you’ll explore these areas and more to find out what direction you’ll take with your new products.

At the exploratory stage, market researchers will delve into data around consumers, their pain points and their general product usage, usually working closely with the Product team to make sure these insights are reflected in the product roadmap.

Once ideas about products and features have been developed during the exploratory stage, many companies then take an even deeper look into issues and topics that emerged in the previous stage.

Ideas you might have had earlier on in the product development process will be scrutinised here to help you understand the value of your offering to your potential customers.

Iterative development

Later in the product life cycle process is when you’ll carry out iterative development research. At this stage you’ll analyse and refine your product and its features to make sure the final product you provide to your customers is comprehensive and eliminates their pain points.

Iterative market research can be intricate and involve in-depth analysis of seemingly insignificant features. Things like A/B testing can be done at this stage – that might be testing different versions of a website button or packaging design.

There are a range of product research types that businesses typically explore when they’re defining customer preferences and prepping their potential product for the marketplace.

Each of these types of product development testing cover the spectrum of new product research, all the way from concept testing to post-launch satisfaction and ongoing success. And these testing types can be done in many different ways, ranging from small, intimate, mainly qualitative market research and focus groups to large, mainly quantitative surveys. Let’s get right into the different types of product development testing.

Concept testing

There’s absolutely no point in launching a product without being confident that the idea will resonate with consumers, and will ultimately be a success.

That’s why, right at the beginning of the new product life cycle you should carry out concept testing . This is where you’ll figure out, through extensive research, whether that product or feature you’ve been mulling over will actually give people what they’re looking for- by appealing to consumer preferences .

Concept testing can involve testing anything from brand assets like a new logo or website page to commercial features like the pricing structure, or even as a way to uncover a new customer segment.

Gain confidence in your concepts

Test your concepts with Attest’s quality audiences to help you launch successful products.

User experience research

It’s crucial for marketing, product, insights and innovation professionals to have a full understanding of how an end user interacts with the product or service on a functional level. Are customers able to navigate around the website or platform easily? Or open the physical product quickly? How do they feel as they interact with the product? How easy is it for them to complete their ultimate task?

These are the kinds of questions you should hope to answer through your user experience testing.

It’s super important at this stage to enlist real consumers who might be interested in your product. Even if the users uncover issues with your product or don’t immediately fall in love with it, that’s fine – what matters is that it’s useful insight directly from the people your product is targeted at.

Pricing research

Knowing where to price your product is a battle all companies face at some point. You need your brand to offer a quality product at a price that’s cost effective and competes with other market leaders, but you don’t want your price to be so high that people buy elsewhere, or so low that you miss out on revenue.

Through pricing research you’ll find out what your target customers are willing to pay for what you offer, allowing you to find the sweet spot – the price at which you can maximise revenue, profit and market share.

This is also the perfect time for you to find out if it’s worth your while to offer your customers any discounts, and if so, where in their journey these are most likely to be effective.

Market and competitor research

While it’s obviously super important to carry out research into your own product and offering, don’t forget to stay on top of what’s going on in your industry.

Conducting market and competitor research is vital if you want to offer your potential customers an industry-beating product.

And remember to iterate on your market and competitor research – repeat and build on your research to make sure you have a full understanding of industry trends and so you can identify new ones.

Satisfaction and loyalty research

And your product development research doesn’t end once your product’s out there in the market. Are your customers truly satisfied with your offering? Are you giving them reasons to be loyal to your brand?

It’s a mistake to assume that your customers are satisfied just because they chose to buy from your company. It’s vital that you continue assessing your customers’ happiness and desires, and to make sure you’re on top of any unmet needs.

We hope this practical guide to product development research has been useful for you, and that you can take this insight and continue developing concepts and products that wow your customers.

Always-on, iterative market research is a key way for you to discover ways you can enhance your product offering and make sure you leave customers satisfied with and loyal to your brand.

Create products that your customers really want

Gauge market demand and understand consumer preferences to create the best possible product by running NPD research with Attest.

Elliot Barnard

Customer Research Lead 

Elliot joined Attest in 2019 and has dedicated his career to working with brands carrying out market research. At Attest Elliot takes a leading role in the Customer Research Team, to support customers as they uncover insights and new areas for growth.

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Home » What Is Product Research? Definition & Process

What Is Product Research? Definition & Process

July 31, 2023 max 7min read.

This article contains,

What Is Product Research?

The dynamics of product research across product teams, how to do product research, the importance of data in product research, steps to make your product research successful.

Product Research Definition: Product research is a systematic process of gathering and analyzing information to gain insights into a product or idea. It involves studying the market, target audience, competitors, and relevant industry trends to make informed decisions about the product’s design, development, and marketing.

The main goal of product research is to understand potential customers’ needs, preferences, and pain points, ensuring that the final product meets their demands and expectations. 

By conducting product research, businesses can identify opportunities for improvement, uncover potential obstacles, and refine their product strategy to create a successful and competitive offering in the market.

Several methods are used in product research, such as surveys, focus groups, interviews, observational studies, and data analysis. The findings from these research activities are crucial in guiding product development, pricing, positioning, and marketing efforts, ultimately increasing the chances of creating a product that resonates with the target market and generates positive outcomes for the company.

Let’s dive deeper into the product research process for a better understanding.

Product research is a critical part of the product development process. It helps teams to understand their users, identify their needs, and validate their ideas. However, how product research is conducted can vary across different product teams.

In some teams, product research is conducted by a dedicated team of researchers. These researchers have the expertise and experience to collect and analyze data, and they work closely with product managers to ensure that the research findings are used to inform product decisions.

In other teams, product research is conducted by product managers themselves. These product managers may have some training in research methods. Still, they often rely on various other sources of information, such as user feedback, market data, and competitive analysis.

The way that product research is conducted can also vary depending on the product team’s methodology. Waterfall teams tend to conduct product research more linearly, clearly distinguishing between the research and development phases. Agile teams, on the other hand, are more likely to integrate research with the broader product development process using continuous discovery methods.

No matter how it is conducted, product research is an essential part of the product development process. Product teams can create more successful products by understanding their users and their needs.

Here are some additional factors that can influence the dynamics of product research across product teams:

• The size and maturity of the team. Larger teams with more resources may have dedicated research teams. In comparison, smaller groups may rely on product managers to conduct research.
• The industry that the team is in. Some industries, such as healthcare and finance, require a high degree of regulatory compliance, which can impact how product research is conducted.
• The company’s culture. Some companies have a strong culture of data-driven decision-making, while others rely on gut instinct. This can also influence the way that product research is conducted.

The dynamics of product research across product teams can be complex. However, by understanding these dynamics, product teams can ensure they use research effectively to create successful products.

To embark on a successful product research journey, follow these essential steps that prioritize understanding your target audience and meeting their needs:

• Define Your Target Audience: Clearly identify your potential customers’ specific demographic and psychographic characteristics. Understand their preferences, pain points, and behaviors to tailor your research accordingly.
• Conduct Market Research: Analyze the current market trends, industry dynamics, and potential opportunities for your product. Look into existing competitors and their offerings to uncover gaps your product could fill.
• Set Clear Objectives: Define the goals of your product research. Whether enhancing an existing product or developing a new one, having clear objectives will help focus your efforts and measure success.
• Choose Appropriate Research Methods: Utilize a mix of research techniques like online surveys, interviews, focus groups, and data analysis. Each method offers unique insights into your target audience’s preferences and expectations.
• Create Customer Personas: Based on your research findings, develop detailed customer personas that represent different segments of your target audience. These personas will serve as fictional representations of real customers and guide product development decisions.
• Analyze Competitor Offerings: Study your competitors’ products to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Identify opportunities for differentiation and improvement in your product.
• Gather Feedback Iteratively: Involve your target audience in product development by collecting Feedback at various stages. Iteratively refine your product based on this Feedback to ensure it aligns with customer expectations.
• Test Prototypes: Create prototypes or minimum viable products (MVPs) to gather user feedback early in development . Identifying potential issues before the final product launch can save time and resources.
• Consider Pricing and Positioning: Determine the appropriate pricing strategy and how you will position your product in the market. The perceived value of your product influences customers’ purchasing decisions.
• Stay Open to Adaptation: Be willing to adapt your product based on the insights gained throughout the research process. Consumer preferences and market dynamics can change, and flexibility will keep your product relevant.

Remember, product research is an ongoing process that should continuously inform your decision-making. Focusing on the needs and expectations of your target audience will increase the likelihood of creating a successful and well-received product in the market.

Data is essential for product research. It helps teams to understand their users, identify their needs, and validate their ideas. By collecting and analyzing data, product teams can better decide what features to build, how to improve the user experience, and how to market their products.

Many different types of data can be used for product research. Some familiar sources of data include:

• User feedback: This can be gathered through surveys, interviews, and user testing.
• Market data: This includes information about the target market size, the competition, and the trends in the industry.
• Product data: This includes information about how users are using the product, such as what features they use, how often they use them, and what problems they are having.

By collecting and analyzing this data, product teams can deeply understand their users and their needs. This information can then be used to make better decisions about the product, such as:

• Which features to build: By understanding what features are most important to users, product teams can prioritize their development efforts.
• How to improve the user experience: By understanding where users are having problems, product teams can make changes to the product to enhance the experience.
• How to market the product: By understanding the target market, product teams can create marketing campaigns that are more likely to be successful.

Data is an essential tool for product research. By collecting and analyzing data, product teams can make better decisions about the product, leading to increased user satisfaction and market success.

A study by the Harvard Business Review found that companies that use data-driven decision-making are 23 times more likely to be profitable than those that don’t. The study also found that these companies are more likely to be innovative and grow faster.

Making your product research successful involves a systematic and customer-centric approach. Follow these steps to ensure you gather valuable insights and develop a winning product:

• Clearly Define Objectives: Start by setting specific goals and objectives for your product research. Understand what you want to achieve and the questions you need answers to.
• Know Your Target Audience: Identify your target audience and their characteristics. Understand their needs, preferences, and pain points to tailor your research accordingly.
• Utilize Multiple Research Methods: Employ a mix of research techniques, such as surveys, interviews, focus groups, and data analysis. Each method provides unique insights into your target audience’s behavior and preferences.
• Create Detailed Customer Personas: Develop well-defined customer personas based on your research findings. These personas will represent your ideal customers and guide product development decisions.
• Analyze Market Trends and Competitors: Study the current market trends and analyze your competitors’ offerings. Identify gaps and opportunities to differentiate your product.
• Iterate and Gather Feedback: Involve your target audience throughout product development. Gather Feedback at different stages to iterate and refine your product based on real user insights.
• Test Prototypes and MVPs: Create prototypes or minimum viable products (MVPs) to obtain early user feedback. This helps identify potential issues and make necessary improvements.
• Consider Pricing and Positioning: Develop a pricing strategy that aligns with the perceived value of your product. Determine how to position your product in the market to stand out.
• Stay Agile and Adaptable: Be open to adapting your product based on the insights gained during the research process. Market dynamics can change, and staying agile ensures your product remains relevant.
• Involve Cross-Functional Teams: Collaborate with different departments, including marketing, design, and engineering, to gain diverse perspectives and expertise during the research and development phases.
• Stay Customer-Centric: Keep the needs and expectations of your target audience at the forefront of your decision-making. A customer-centric approach increases the chances of delivering a product that resonates with the market.
• Learn from Failures: Embrace failures and setbacks as opportunities for learning and improvement. Use Feedback from unsuccessful attempts to refine your product and strategy.

By following these steps, you can ensure a comprehensive and compelling product research process, leading to the development of a successful product that meets customer needs and achieves business objectives.

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Google Trends can be used for product research by analyzing search trends to identify the popularity and interest in specific products over time. It helps businesses understand consumer preferences and anticipate market demands.

An example of product research would be conducting surveys and focus groups to gather Feedback on a new smartphone design. This research helps the company understand customer preferences, desired features, and potential improvements for the final product.

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Product Research

Relevant templates

Product research is the systematic process of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data and insights related to a specific product or service. It encompasses various methodologies and techniques to understand customer needs, market dynamics, competitor offerings, and industry trends to inform strategic decisions throughout the product lifecycle. Product research is the foundation for developing successful products, guiding innovation, and ensuring alignment with customer expectations and market demands.

Significance of Product Research

Product research plays a pivotal role in guiding strategic decision-making and mitigating risks associated with product development and launch. By conducting thorough research, businesses can gain valuable insights into customer preferences, market trends, and competitive landscapes, enabling them to make informed decisions, minimize uncertainties, and maximize the likelihood of success for their products.

Key Components of Product Research

Product research containes various components and methodologies, including:

• Market Research: Gathering data and insights on market size, segmentation, trends, and dynamics to understand the broader market and identify opportunities and threats.
• Customer Research: Conducting surveys , interviews , and observational studies to understand customer needs, preferences, behaviors, and pain points related to the product or service.
• Competitor Analysis: Analyzing competitor offerings, strategies, strengths, and weaknesses to identify gaps in the market and inform differentiation strategies.
• Trend Analysis: Monitoring industry trends, technological advancements, and consumer behaviors to anticipate future demands and stay ahead of market shifts.
• Usability Testing: Evaluating the usability , functionality, and user experience of prototypes or existing products to identify areas for improvement and optimization.

Methods of Product Research

Product research employs a variety of methods and techniques, including:

• Surveys and Questionnaires: Administering structured surveys and questionnaires to collect quantitative data on customer preferences, attitudes, and behaviors.
• Interviews and Focus Groups: Conducting in-depth interviews and focus group discussions to gather qualitative insights and explore customer motivations, needs, and pain points.
• Market Analysis: Utilizing secondary research sources such as industry reports, market data, and competitor analyses to understand market trends and dynamics.
• Prototype Testing: Creating prototypes or minimum viable products (MVPs) to gather feedback from users through usability testing and iterative design processes.
• Data Analytics: Leveraging data analytics tools and techniques to analyze customer interactions, behaviors, and engagement patterns to derive actionable insights.

Importance of Product Research in Business Development

Product research is indispensable for businesses seeking to develop successful products and drive sustainable growth. Its importance lies in:

• Identifying Opportunities: Product research helps businesses identify unmet customer needs, market gaps, and emerging trends, enabling them to capitalize on opportunities for innovation and differentiation.
• Minimizing Risks: By conducting thorough research, businesses can mitigate risks associated with product development, market entry, and investment decisions, reducing the likelihood of product failures or market setbacks.
• Informing Strategy: Product research provides valuable insights for formulating product strategies, pricing strategies, marketing campaigns, and go-to-market plans, ensuring alignment with customer preferences and market demands.
• Enhancing Competitiveness: By staying informed about market trends, customer preferences, and competitor offerings, businesses can maintain a competitive edge and adapt quickly to changing market conditions.

Product research is a fundamental aspect of business development, providing valuable insights that inform strategic decision-making, drive innovation, and ensure the successful development and launch of products and services. By investing in comprehensive product research methodologies and techniques, businesses can maximize their chances of success, foster customer satisfaction, and achieve sustainable growth in competitive markets

Relevant terms

How To Do Market Research For New Product Development

Market research for new product development can be overwhelming.

It’s easy to get lost in a mountain of market reports with thousands of data points…. yet get no clear insights on which product is best for your brand.

Instead of aimlessly searching for new product ideas and sifting through endless market reports, this post will walk you through a simple step-by-step process that outlines:

• How to quickly find relevant new product ideas.
• Specific data and metrics you need to analyze each product opportunity (and how to find these metrics).
• How to use market research data to assess a product opportunity.

What Is Market Research For New Product Development?

Market research for new product development is the process of evaluating the demand, growth, and gaps in a market for a particular product (typically a physical product sold in a retail setting or direct to consumer).

These insights help you understand which products your target market wants, which ones are most profitable, and the key characteristics customers like and dislike about competitors' products.

With this data, you can more accurately predict which product will perform best for your business.

Types Of Market Research For New Product Development

There are four types of market research typically used for researching and developing products: 

• Qualitative research
• Quantitative research
• Primary research
• Secondary research

Quantitative Research

Examples of quantitative data you might collect during the product market research process include:

• Market size and growth rates
• Pricing data
• Sales forecasts
• Website traffic data
• Market share of the top competitors

Quantitative data is helpful for benchmarking and is often the main type of research used to quickly gauge the potential of market opportunities.

Quantitative data can be fact-checked, but accuracy still varies depending on factors like sample size and data collection methods.

Qualitative Research

Qualitative research is data based on subjective opinions.

An example of qualitative data is customer feedback.

This data is helpful for product market research, as you can better understand customer pain points and what they like and dislike about what's already out there.

Some examples of qualitative research methods include:

• Interviews with potential customers
• Customer reviews
• Questionnaires and surveys
• Discussion analysis (monitoring conversations on social media, in forums, etc.)
• Feedback from focus groups

Primary Research

Primary research is data collected by you or your company.

Here are some examples of primary research:

• Results from a survey you conducted
• A report from sales data your team analyzed
• Customer interviews conducted by your team

The advantage of primary market research is that it's proprietary data your company owns. So your competitors won't have access to it. You can also tailor the data to answer your specific questions about the market.

The downside of primary research is that it’s expensive and time-consuming. You'll have to conduct the research, clean the data, and analyze it yourself.

You can hire a market research firm to help, but this will make it even more costly.

Secondary Research

Secondary research is data collected and published by other third-party sources, like an industry publication or government agency.

Here are some examples of secondary research:

• Free and paid market reports published by a source like Grand View Research or MarketResearch.com .
• Statistics published by a source like The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics or the U.S. Energy Information Administration .
• Data in the Census Business Builder .

Secondary research is usually cheaper than primary research, so it's great for the early stages of product market research when you're narrowing down your list of product ideas.

For example, if you're interested in the padel market, search "padel market forecast" to find free industry reports. You can look at statistics like compounding annual growth rate and market size to quickly gauge if the padel market is worth exploring in more detail.

The drawback of secondary research is that the data quality may vary as you can't control data quality.

So research how each provider collects and cleans the data they publish.

Step By Step Process To Conduct Market Research For Product Development

​​In this step-by-step market research process for new product development, you'll learn how to find, validate, and develop a great product.

Step 1: Research And Identify Trending Products

Many people browse social media and Amazon to find trending product ideas.

But emerging products, by definition, aren't easy to find.

You might spend hours browsing these platforms to find a few promising product ideas. And even the most diligent product researchers might still overlook the best emerging product ideas.

One solution to find great product ideas faster is to use a product research tool.

However, each tool contains different product ideas.

So the tool you choose significantly impacts the product ideas you find.

For example, many product research tools only show products that have grown significantly in the past few weeks. These are often fads, and demand may die out when you’re ready to launch your product.

Other product research tools show you products that are currently trending. Yet this isn't helpful if you want to launch a product before demand peaks.

Or, the product research tool might simply overlook the best product ideas. This is common with product research tools relying on human analysts to find product ideas, as even the best analysts may overlook a great product idea.

To solve these problems, we built our own product research tool, Exploding Topics.

It has a unique trend identification and qualification method that uses AI and ML to scan millions of data points across sources like YouTube, Amazon, Spotify, Google Search, and Reddit. This ensures it consistently spots emerging product ideas. Then, we use Google Search volume data to ensure the topic has a steady compounding growth trajectory.

This process allows Exploding Topics to consistently identify emerging products with long-term growth potential.

It's also easy to use.

When you open the Trending Products dashboard, you'll see a list of trending products. You can filter the database by category (fitness, fashion, beauty, gaming, pets, etc.), BSR, monthly sales, price, revenue, and reviews.

The graph next to the product information also represents the keyword's Google Search volume trend so that you can gauge its growth trajectory:

When you see a product that interests you, click on it for more details, like a forecast of its growth trend for the coming year.

Further down the product page is a list of the Top Sellers for that product on Amazon.

You’ll also see related trending products and topics. You can also click on any of those products for more detailed information.

To track a product, click "Track Topic" and add it to a Project.

Projects are folders that live inside the Trend Tracking dashboard, and Exploding Topics updates each topic's growth trend in real time.

This makes it easy to gauge product growth at a glance so that you never have to worry about managing a product idea spreadsheet.

You can try Exploding Topics Pro for $1 to start researching product ideas.

Step 2: Analyze The Market For Each Product Idea

Your product is much more likely to succeed if it’s part of a growing market.

An easy way to quickly analyze a market’s general growth trajectory is to look at a market forecast.

Sources like Grand View Research , Globe Newswire , and Market.us usually offer free market reports with forecast data.

To find these reports, Google the product keyword and "market report:"

Next, identify the brands with the largest market share and analyze their growth trajectory.

If the market leaders are growing rapidly, the market is probably also expanding.

There are two ways to easily gauge a brand's growth.

1. Check the brand’s Google Search volume trend .

You can find a brand's Google Search volume trend by typing the brand name into Google Trends or the Trends Search feature in Exploding Topics.

You can also click "Track Topic" and add it to a Project to monitor growth.

2. Employee headcount

A company is probably growing if it has steadily increased employee headcount over the past few years.

You can find employee headcount data by typing the brand name into LinkedIn and scrolling down to the bottom of the company page:

Funding data is also a great indicator of a market's growth trajectory.

Investors spend a lot of time and resources assessing market growth, so a lot of funding activity is a good sign the market is growing.

Paid tools like CB Insights and Pitchbook offer detailed funding data for most industries. You can also search "funding" and the industry name to find press releases, funding reports, and other relevant investment news.

Step 3: Conduct Customer Research

Once you find a trending product in a growing market, the next step is figuring out how to create the best product possible.

First, identify what customers like and dislike about existing products. Then, create a product that incorporates the elements customers like about existing products and solves the pain points they experience.

The easiest way to conduct customer research is to analyze customer reviews.

Amazon is the best resource to find verified reviews. As you're reading through the reviews, make notes on:

• Target Audience Demographics : Who is buying the product? (gender, age, location, etc.).
• Use Case : What problem did they purchase the product to solve?
• Praise : What do they like about the product?
• Pain Points : What do they like about the product?

For example, from the review below, you can tell that customers value soft material, accurate color descriptions, and expensive aesthetics. You can also see that customers want a more durable product.

Reading through reviews can help you better understand your target customers, but most people don't have time to read thousands of customer reviews.

So you can also copy and paste customer reviews into ChatGPT and ask it to extract insights on audience demographics, product use cases, likes, and dislikes.

Here's a prompt you can use to analyze the reviews. (In this screenshot, all of the reviews are pasted in quotes following the prompt):

Here’s a snippet of the response it generated:

You can also find Reddit or Facebook groups of your target audience.

For example, if you're considering selling infant vitamins, you could join these Facebook groups for moms:

After joining the group, you can ask members about the product you're researching. Here are some specific questions you can ask:

• Why did they purchase the product?
• How did they select the brand they purchased from?
• What do they like/dislike about the product?

You can also ask respondents if they would consider getting on a quick call. One-on-one interviews let you ask more follow-up questions to better understand the audience.

Talking to prospects is also a great way to build up some demand for your product and even recruit a group of beta testers.

If you already have an audience, ask them about your new product idea.

For example, this creator asked her TikTok followers what they thought of her sleepwear product idea.

Then, she documented the product development process and gathered feedback from her followers to craft a product they want.

For example, after designing a few concepts with the manufacturer, she created another video of the initial product designs and asked her audience for feedback.

Her product launch went on to be a major success and she sold out in a matter of hours.

Step 4: Pre-Sell Your Product And Gather Initial Feedback

The best way to validate market demand for your product concept is to see if people will buy it.

So design a few product samples and then run a pre-order sale.

If nobody buys the product, you'll avoid wasting thousands of dollars developing tens or hundreds of products that nobody wants.

And if your pre-order sale is successful, you can use that revenue to fund product development.

For example, Nebia ran a pre-order sale for its bidets to validate the product concept.

There are a few different ways you can generate pre-orders.

If you already have an audience, you can create a social media post or email your list and announce the pre-order sale.

This post is a great example of a pre-order sale video. The influencer explains how the product works, its benefits, and how it solves common pain points.

If you don't have an audience, you can work with an influencer to create a pre-order video for you.

You can also run Facebook or Instagram ads to a landing page to generate pre-orders. Facebook has a step-by-step guide explaining how to set up and run ads for pre-order sales.

Another option is to run a pre-order sale on Kickstarter.

Nebia is a great example of an ecommerce brand that validated its product idea on Kickstarter.

The Kickstarter community will also give you initial feedback on the product before you launch it to the public. Kickstarter users also know they're beta testers, so they tend to be more forgiving if the initial product concept isn't perfect.

You can also ask some Kickstarter buyers to record video reviews of the product for your public product launch.

Step 5: Launch Your New Product And Gather Feedback

After launching your product, gather feedback from your audience to continue iterating on the original product.

If you have a social media following, you can ask your audience what they like and dislike about the product.

You can also email your list offering a discount or coupon to complete a product survey.

Survey tools like Pollfish and SurveyMonkey make it easy to create and send a product survey.

In the survey, ask specific questions about the product. For example, if you’re selling athletic clothing, you could ask them to rate the product fit, material quality, durability, style, color, and other specific factors.

If you leave the questions too open ended, people will give you generic feedback that might not be very helpful for improving the product.

Start The New Product Market Research Process Today

A solid product market research process takes the guesswork out of product launches by giving you the data you need to identify and design the best product for your audience.

It will also give you more confidence on launch day, as you'll have solid evidence of strong demand for your product.

To get started with the first step of the product market research process, use Exploding Topics to browse thousands of emerging trending products today.

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Product Research: The Building Blocks of a User-Centered Solution

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The product research process for building winning solutions

In the previous chapter, we covered the key elements of product research. Now, you need a robust process to understand how your user will engage with your product—and the alternatives currently on the market. Here’s how to prep, conduct, and access the results of your product research.

What to consider before starting the product research process

Before adopting a product research process at your organization, you need to align with other stakeholders and ensure everyone’s on the same page about what you’re trying to achieve, why, and how you’re going to do it.

Some key things to bear in mind are:

Adopt a continuous product research mindset

When you have a continuous product discovery mindset, user insights aren’t just gathered at the beginning of a project, but are collected regularly using various product discovery techniques throughout the product lifecycle.

Think of research as something that happens during product development, not as a precursor to it. That way, you’ll always be working towards delivering a product that your users really want—and can easily use. “This iterative approach helps refine the product, enhance user experience, and identify future opportunities,” explains Sonal Srivastava , Senior UX Researcher at Amazon.

Ideally, you’ll conduct research on an ongoing basis, but at the very least, you could think about how to implement it during the following stages:

• Before development: To understand user needs, identify opportunities and define product features
• During product development: To test various concepts and refine the product through user feedback
• Post-launch: To evaluate performance, gather user satisfaction insights, and identify areas for improvement

Adapting a continuous product discovery mindset before you begin research is helpful for several reasons. Firstly, your team will be prepared for a process that isn’t entirely linear. Part of this includes storing user and product research insights in an organized and secure way, so they can be used easily throughout the product lifecycle. You’ll also be able to plan the time and budget accordingly, making sure you’re prepared to conduct studies before every iteration.

Know what you’re looking for and why

Researching without objectives is aimless, and can result in incorrect assumptions and biased products.

To avoid wasting your resources (and your user's time), you need to set clear research goals. This means knowing exactly what you want to achieve with each study, and why you're conducting it. When you combine this with an effort to stay aligned with the business and product strategy, you'll experience the added benefit of getting your decisions signed off more quickly. Your key stakeholders will understand exactly what your research will achieve.

Having clear goals also helps you decide whether you have any relevant context from previous user or market research, or if you're starting from scratch.

Build the type of product your user needs

Keep users at the center of your product decisions by using Maze to conduct remote tests at scale—and throughout the product lifecycle.

8 Steps to conduct effective product research

Before you begin, bear in mind that the product research process can (and should) be cyclical. Below, we lay out the steps in a linear way, but a continuous discovery approach is most effective for ensuring every product decision is based on user insights.

1. Opportunity assessment

Matthieu Dixte , our Product Researcher at Maze, explains the opportunity assessment stage as the place to identify and prioritize opportunities before thinking about the solution. If developing a product were a murder mystery, this would be when the detective starts looking for leads. No assumptions are being made just yet; it's all about gathering clues and fact-finding.

For you, the opportunity assessment means:

• Going through any previous research findings
• Monitoring the market
• Hosting customer feedback sessions
• Doing competitive product analysis or customer voice analysis

During this stage, you can also review your product's performance to spot any interesting trends. For example, Matthieu tells a story of a company he worked with before Maze. His team noticed that people were trying to click on charts on their website—the charts weren't actually clickable, but people wanted to filter them.

"This behavior helped us understand that people wanted to interact with the charts," says Matthieu. "We also detected that sometimes people clicked on the charts to copy and paste information because they wanted to share it with stakeholders."

These are the kinds of insights that can appear during the first stage of your product research process, and highlight which opportunities to explore in depth. “At Maze, we frequently review user feedback and monitor the market to gauge how our competitors are evolving. Each product idea comes from a trend that we detected,” says Matthieu.

2. Problem shaping

At this stage, you’re building on your findings from the opportunity assessment stage and shaping them into hypotheses. This will help identify the specific problem you want to solve.

For example, imagine people are complaining about your existing product not being flexible enough. This could mean a number of things:

• They’re not able to customize the dashboard colors
• They can’t export the source code
• The mobile experience is lacking

During the problem shaping stage, look into all those possibilities, refine the potential hypothesis, and decide which opportunities to explore further using prioritization techniques . You should also think of your target audience and how to conduct research to identify what your customers want.

Take this opportunity to seek stakeholder alignment, set clear objectives in line with your research strategy , and plan what you’ll do with the gathered insights. You can also use this stage to come up with ideas for product experimentation based on your previous research and findings.

3. Solution generation and screening

The solution generation and screening step is for outlining how your new feature, product, or initiative will reach the previously set goals—and improve the customer experience. It’s about defining how you’ll bridge the gap between user problems and a solution.

You should also use this stage to screen the different solutions or ideas and prioritize them. Determine which ones have a better market fit and are feasible, and get rid of unpromising ideas. Here you should also decide the methods, questions, and participants’ requirements—and share the plan with key stakeholders. At this stage, you should seek stakeholders' input and ensure continued alignment.

To properly screen ideas and solutions, you need to keep business goals in mind as well as the users’ pain points, so you can come up with win-win solutions for all your key stakeholders. Speak to users through surveys , focus groups, or five-second tests to see how they understand your idea or solution, then use those insights to decide which solution to develop.

4. Solution definition

It's time to think about how the ideas can come together. The solution definition stage is about further refining and solidifying the chosen idea or concept. The goal is to get a clear concept that designers can turn into a prototype.

During this stage, you should also conduct a feasibility assessment to determine whether you have the resources to go ahead with the solution. This means assessing your internal resources and team capacity, as well as potential revenue. You can use feedback and satisfaction surveys or conduct user interviews to gauge your target customers' opinions and address the desirability of the solution or idea.

You can also take a look at what you already know, or what others have learned to further define your solution. Here's how Sonal does it:

"I draft research questions that guide the study and address our objectives," she explains. "I also conduct a literature review and collaborate with the analytics team to gather relevant data. I define the methodology, participant recruitment criteria, and timelines, sharing them with stakeholders for feedback and alignment. Then, I create interview scripts or survey questions based on the objectives and conduct research sessions to collect data."

Like Sonal, it's vital to collaborate with other team members and stakeholders throughout the process. That way, you get their input as you define your solution and will have their buy-in when you want to make product decisions later.

5. Prototyping

Before going deep into the product development process , you should get your current or potential customers to test a prototype of your solution. Contrary to popular opinion, you should test your prototype when launching any new feature—you don’t need to wait until you have a new product to launch.

Prototyping usually involves designing physical or digital representations of the solution or concept. These can be anything from low-fidelity mockups to high-fidelity, almost fully-functional products. This stage allows you to collect insights on your product’s usability , user experience (UX) , and information architecture (IA). It also identifies any potential design flaws before the development or product launch—remember, it’ll be far more complicated and costly to make edits later.

It’s worth remembering that you can move back-and-forth between this step, validation and testing, and solution definition, until you’ve found a concept that drives customer satisfaction.

Product tip💡

Use a product research tool like Maze to test your prototype or wireframe. Share the tests with your users or access Maze’s Panel of highly qualified participants. Maze can also help you conduct UX research methods like surveys, tree testing, and card sorting.

6. Solution validation and testing

After creating a prototype, you should validate and test your solution to ensure it's effectively solving the problem and meeting the desired goals. During this step, gather feedback from your target market, personas, or potential users to identify any design flaws or areas of improvement.

To conduct proper solution or idea validation and testing, you can gather insights through user interviews, usability tests, focus groups, surveys, copy and content tests , A/B tests , and five-second tests. It's always important to get a mix of quantitative and qualitative results, but it's crucial that you conduct some sort of qualitative research at this stage, like an interview study or survey, so you're able to truly understand your customers' needs and pain points.

7. Development and deployment

The development and deployment stage of product research is when your ideas, concepts, and solutions come to life. Once you’ve validated, tested, and refined your prototype, you can involve the development team. Now’s when you can build the minimum viable product (MVP) or complete a new feature, considering your time and resource constraints.

Depending on your software development methodology, you can also choose to continuously deploy solutions as the team codes them, or wait until you've tested the different components before deploying them. For example, if the update is straightforward and has low user impact, a continuous deployment approach might be more efficient.

Continue to conduct product testing after launch so you can keep iterating and building successful products. If you’re using Maze as your continuous product discovery tool, you can use In-Product Prompts or Live Website Testing to gather insights from real users—after your solution is live.

8. Impact assessment

The last step of the product research process is to analyze the impact of your innovation. Review the results and present them to the product team and stakeholders. If you’re following a continuous research mindset, use this stage to reflect on the metrics and come up with improvement ideas to test and develop in the next sprint.

"I like to present findings in a team meeting, followed by a brainstorming session to discuss the next steps for the team based on research insights," says Sonal. This helps you continue building better products that excite your target demographic. "I often also create multiple versions of the results where I customize the report for different stakeholders to ensure they receive the insights relevant to their roles," she adds.

Product research process: What you need to know

In short, the product research process enables you to make decisions based on product-market interactions. If you want to build user-centric products, adopting a continuous product research mindset is crucial. This means taking user insights as a starting point for doing further research and informing decision-making. Your workflow should also have clear goals aligned with your high-level business and product strategy.

Throughout the product lifecycle, complete the following steps at regular intervals:

• Opportunity assessment
• Problem shaping
• Solution generation and screening
• Solution definition
• Prototyping
• Solution validation and testing
• Development and deployment
• Impact assessment

Keep reading for our chapters on how to experiment with your product to improve customer satisfaction, and how to conduct competitive product analysis to set you apart.

Frequently asked questions about the product research process

What does product research include?

Product research includes finding areas of improvement, testing ideas, and developing solutions to enhance the product experience. The product research process goes like this:

• Validation and testing

How to conduct product research?

To do product research, start by looking at the product's performance, user, and market data to come up with opportunities you want to explore. Then, talk to users to shape the problem space and generate a solution. Conduct further research to define the solution, test your prototype, and validate your assumptions. Only then can you take the final design to the development team, launch the product, and assess the impact of your innovation.

What tools do you need for product research?

These are the tools you need for product research:

• Product testing tools like Maze to test usability, capture customer feedback, and gather user sentiment at scale
• Note-taking apps like Notion to write down interview questions and answers, or keep track of your diary studies
• Video conferencing tools such as Zoom or Google Meet to interview your customers and collect feedback

Product experimentation

New product development (NPD)

New Product Development is a comprehensive set of multidisciplinary processes that turn an opportunity into a product that will satisfy a customer.

Contents covered in this article

Introduction to New Product Development (NPD)

What is new product development.

New Product Development (NPD) is a comprehensive multi-disciplinary process that transforms a market opportunity into a marketable new product to satisfy customer requirements.

According to Wheelwright and Clark (1992), NPD is defined as effective activity organisation and management to bring products to market with low development costs and short development times.

PDMA defines NPD as,

“A disciplined and defined set of tasks and steps that describe the normal means by which a company repetitively converts embryonic ideas into saleable products or services.”

PDMA handbook 2nd edition

It’s sometimes called New Product Introduction (NPI) or new product planning and development. It applies to tangible products such as phones, coffee makers, TVs, etc., and intangible products like mobile phone apps and software programs.

Importance of New Product Development

Why is New Product Development necessary?

NPD is the driving force of companies and vital for their organic growth. Insatiable consumer appetite, worldwide solid competition, and changing consumer behaviour and technology force companies to invest in new products to succeed or for their survival.

The importance of introducing new products can be summarised in these “Seven reasons why new product development is necessary.”

Changing consumer Increasing competition Technological advancement New opportunities (growth and development) Risk diversification To increase company & brand reputation To utilise excess capacity

New Product Development Strategy

A New Product Development (NPD) strategy is a plan or framework that guides creating and delivering a new product to the market. It involves steps and decisions to identify opportunities, conceptualise, design, develop, and launch a product that meets customer needs and aligns with business goals.

Importance of New Product Development Strategy

Why do you need a thorough NPD strategy? According to the McKinsey Global Institute data, consider these 4 statistical facts about how products are fair.

Only 4 in 7 product ideas enter the product development stage Only 3 products get launched from 14 product ideas Only 1 in 7 product ideas will yield a successful product Launched products have a failure rate of 25% to 45%

Research shows that some NPD failures can be attributed to the lack of a structured NPD process. According to Wheelwright and Clark (1992), companies that approach NPD in a structured manner have more success than those with an ad-hoc approach.

By following a well-planned set of procedures & milestones, companies can avoid some of the common pitfalls that lead to the failure of NPD, such as;

Overestimate market size Customer requirement misinterpretation Launched at the wrong time Poor product design Target customer’s requirement mismatch Price too high Poor advertising and marketing High product development cost due to overrun & resource overuse Competition risks and threats

Structured approach vs. ad-hoc methods

Typical NPD processes companies follow can be divided into Structured approach vs. ad-hoc methods.

When developing new products, structured approaches and ad hoc methods have merits and drawbacks.

Structured Approach

Methodical Process – A structured approach follows a systematic, step-by-step process. It typically involves stages like idea generation, feasibility analysis, design, development, testing, and launch.

Risk Management – It often incorporates risk assessment and mitigation strategies at each stage, reducing the chances of significant setbacks or failures.

Efficiency – Structured methods can enhance efficiency by providing clear guidelines, roles, and responsibilities. They also make it easier to track progress and make necessary adjustments.

However, structured approaches can sometimes be rigid, potentially stifling creativity or innovation. They might also require more time and resources upfront. Typically

Ad-Hoc Methods

Flexibility and Creativity – Ad-hoc methods allow for more flexibility and spontaneity. They can adapt highly to changing circumstances, enabling quick pivots or adjustments based on emerging opportunities or feedback.

Cost and Time – They may save time and resources initially by skipping formalities and allowing for rapid prototyping or testing. This agility can sometimes lead to faster product iterations.

However, ad-hoc approaches need consistency, increasing the risk of overlooking critical steps or making hasty decisions. They also result in inefficiencies due to the absence of a defined structure.

The ideal approach often involves balancing structured and ad hoc methods. Incorporating structured steps ensures essential considerations are addressed while allowing room for flexibility to encourage innovation and adaptation.

For instance, using a structured approach for the core development process while allowing for creative brainstorming sessions or agile methods during certain stages can combine the benefits of both approaches.

Models and Frameworks in NPD

New product development models overview.

A well-tailored NPD strategy will enable companies to organise their product planning, understand their customers, accurately plan, and efficiently use their resources for NPD. An NPD strategy will also help to avoid the pitfalls mentioned above and increase the chance of product success.

New product development methods

Comparison of different NPD frameworks

There are various models proposed by authors before. Still, it starts with an idea to build a product that meets the customer’s technical specifications. It ends with a product launch or introduction to the market. The number of stages and phases and their description varies from model to model depending on the following.

Product type (tangible/intangible) The degree of innovation (redesign vs routine design). Product Complexity Production & manufacturing process – manual or automated Supply chain Technology involved. Resource availability (workforce) Labour availability? Time and budget

New product development stages

As the table above shows, the product development stages can vary, but they often can be grouped into these 5 key phases, which include 8 critical activities;

Overview of the NPD process

Fuzzy front end Opportunity identification & analysis Idea generation & screening Concept & technology development Business case building Marketing strategy development and marketing mix Business analysis Product design Product design Product Implementation Test marketing Commercialisation/Fuzzy back end Product launch

Five key New product development stages

Fuzzy front end.

As the name suggests, the fuzzy front end is the messy stage of the new product development where opportunities are identified & analysed, and ideas are generated & screened before a viable concept is developed. This set of activities paves the way for a formal technical specification of the final product.

Business case building

This stage analyses the market before product design and development begin. Marketing strategy development defines the target market, sales, and market share. The company must also determine the best market mix ( 4Ps—product, place, price, and promotion). Finally, the company evaluates the proposed product’s attractiveness against its long-term objectives.

Product design

The product design stage is the detailed phase where the technical requirements are turned into an engineering product design. In engineering, prototyping and product design are at the heart of any product development and follow the following four phases.

Product definition and product planning Conceptual design Embodiment design Detail design

Product Implementation

Market testing – The stage at which the product is introduced using the proposed marketing program. It lets the company test the product and its marketing program—targeting and positioning strategy, advertising, distribution, pricing, branding and packaging, and budget levels.

Commercialisation

After the product implementation phases, management will have gathered all the relevant information to make the final decision about going commercialisation. At this stage, companies use the knowledge gained from the product implementation stage and their marketing mix to launch the product, where product life cycle management starts.

Factors influencing development stages

In New Product Development (NPD) methods, several factors influence each stage of the development process. These factors can shape decision-making, resource allocation, and overall success. Here are some key factors that have an impact:

Market Trends and Consumer Needs – Understanding market trends and evolving consumer needs is crucial. These insights guide idea generation and concept development and ensure the product meets customer expectations. Technological Advancements —Technology influences product design, development, and production methods. Staying abreast of new technologies helps create innovative products, improve efficiency, and enhance competitiveness. Regulatory and Compliance Requirements – Legal and regulatory standards impact product development, especially in healthcare, food, and automotive industries. Compliance with safety, environmental, and industry-specific regulations is essential. Competitive Landscape —Analysing competitors’ products and strategies is vital. It helps identify market gaps, differentiate products, and create unique value propositions. Resource Availability and Constraints – The availability of financial resources, skilled personnel, technology, and infrastructure affects the speed and scope of product development. Constraints in any of these areas can influence decision-making and the development timeline. Risk Management and Feasibility – Assessing risks associated with new product development is crucial. Factors like technical feasibility, market acceptance, manufacturing challenges, and financial risks need careful consideration at each stage. Cross-functional Collaboration – Collaboration between departments like R&D, marketing, production, and sales is essential. Effective communication and collaboration streamline the NPD process and ensure a holistic approach. Customer Feedback and Testing —Gathering feedback from potential customers through surveys, focus groups, and prototypes influences product refinement. Testing helps validate ideas and ensure that the product meets customer expectations. Time-to-Market Considerations – Speed is often critical in launching a successful product. External factors like seasonal demands or technological obsolescence might necessitate quicker development and launch. Sustainability and Environmental Factors – Considerations about sustainability, environmental impact, and societal values are increasingly important. Consumers often favour products that align with sustainability goals and ethical standards.

The interplay of these factors differs across industries and products, requiring flexibility and adaptability in the NPD process. Companies that effectively navigate these influences often produce products that are not only innovative but also aligned with market demands and regulations.

Current Trends and Future Directions in NPD

Impact of technology on npd.

Market Trends and Consumer Needs – Understanding market trends and evolving consumer needs is crucial. These insights guide idea generation and concept development and ensure the product meets customer expectations.

Technological Advancements —Technology influences product design, development, and production methods. Staying abreast of new technologies helps create innovative products, improve efficiency, and enhance competitiveness.

Regulatory and Compliance Requirements – Legal and regulatory standards impact product development, especially in healthcare, food, and automotive industries. Compliance with safety, environmental, and industry-specific regulations is essential.

Competitive Landscape —Analyzing competitors’ products and strategies is vital. It helps identify market gaps, differentiate products, and create unique value propositions.

Resource Availability and Constraints – The availability of financial resources, skilled personnel, technology, and infrastructure affects the speed and scope of product development. Constraints in any of these areas can influence decision-making and the development timeline.

Risk Management and Feasibility – Assessing risks associated with new product development is crucial. Factors like technical feasibility, market acceptance, manufacturing challenges, and financial risks need careful consideration at each stage.

Cross-functional Collaboration – Collaboration between departments like R&D, marketing, production, and sales is essential. Effective communication and collaboration streamline the NPD process and ensure a holistic approach.

Customer Feedback and Testing —Gathering feedback from potential customers through surveys, focus groups, and prototypes influences product refinement. Testing helps validate ideas and ensure that the product meets customer expectations.

Time-to-Market Considerations – Speed is often critical in launching a successful product. External factors like seasonal demands or technological obsolescence might necessitate quicker development and launch.

Sustainability and Environmental Factors – Considerations about sustainability, environmental impact, and societal values are increasingly important. Consumers often favour products that align with sustainability goals and ethical standards.

Trends shaping the future of product development

The future of product development is shaped by several transformative trends influencing how products are conceptualised, designed, manufactured, and brought to market. Some of these trends include:

Advanced Technologies Integration

AI and Machine Learning – These technologies assist in data analysis, trend prediction, and personalised product development based on consumer behaviour and preferences. Internet of Things (IoT) – Connecting devices and products enables data collection, remote monitoring, and the creation of intelligent, interconnected ecosystems. Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) – These technologies enhance product design, testing, and customer experiences by providing immersive and interactive interfaces.

Sustainable and Eco-friendly Products

Increasing consumer awareness and environmental concerns are driving the demand for sustainable products. This trend involves using eco-friendly materials, reducing waste, and creating products with a smaller ecological footprint.

Mass Customization

Consumers seek personalised products. Companies are leveraging technology to offer customisable options at scale, allowing customers to tailor products to their preferences.

Collaborative and Agile Development:

• Cross-functional collaboration and agile methodologies are becoming more prevalent. Companies are breaking silos, enabling faster iterations, and incorporating feedback throughout the development process.

Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing):

• 3D printing revolutionises prototyping and manufacturing by enabling cost-effective, on-demand production of complex parts and customised products.

Remote Work and Digital Collaboration:

• Remote work trends impact product development teams, necessitating digital collaboration tools and processes to facilitate seamless communication and cooperation among dispersed teams.

Emphasis on User Experience (UX) and Design Thinking:

• Design thinking methodologies prioritise user-centric approaches, focusing on understanding and addressing user needs and pain points throughout the product development lifecycle.

Predictive Analytics and Data-Driven Decision-Making:

• Utilising big data analytics for market insights, trend analysis, and predictive modelling to make informed decisions throughout product development.

Subscription-Based and Service-Oriented Models:

• Shifts towards service-oriented models such as Spotify, Netflix, CCTV camera cloud storage subscription-based products, and product-as-a-service offerings are gaining traction, creating ongoing customer relationships beyond one-time transactions.

Supply Chain Resilience and Localization

• The pandemic highlighted vulnerabilities in global supply chains. There’s a move towards building more resilient supply chains, focusing on localisation, diversification, and agility. 

Embracing these trends allows companies to stay competitive, respond to evolving consumer demands, reduce time-to-market, and create products that align with changing societal, environmental, and technological landscapes.

5 Challenges of new product development

There is more than one reason why companies should create new products . Developing quality new engineering products consistently and having a stronghold in your niche market is one of the most powerful but difficult activities in business (Clark and Wheelwright 1995). 75% of new product developments fail, which shows how challenging it can be for the new engineering product design team to succeed.

Product designers face various challenges during the development cycle, however, not all of them are technical. Some of the challenges are due to external factors such as cost, economic changes, competitor influence, company policy etc.

Let’s look into some of the key general non-technical challenges that product design engineers face in detail.

As an engineering product designer, one of the hardest things is to justify the decisions and manage trade-offs during the embodiment design stage.

For example, a car can be made to look like the BMW concept car and also made lighter, faster, more efficient etc, but all these would probably increase manufacturing cost and the car will cost more than the targeted segment of the market can afford. Hence, to keep the unit selling cost down, compromises have to be made to the original product requirement specification without sacrificing some of their original unique selling points.  The challenge here is to identify, understand and manage such trade-offs in a way to increase the product’s success.

Product economics

Product economics is all about profitably developing and selling an engineering product to solve a customer’s problem.

Every product designer who had to make a trade-off decision would know that the decision was made most probably due to economics. The 8 stages of new product development require a large investment and a lot more effort than you think at the start. To get a reasonable return on investment, the end product must be both appealing to customers and relatively inexpensive to produce.

As the cost breakdown shows in image above on average an engineering product design accounts for only 5% of the total NPD cost but its influence on the rest is 70%. Even a simple design for assembly (DFA) change of using snap-fits instead of self-tapping screws can save thousands of pounds. No matter how simple the product is, there will be hundreds of such decisions that would have an impact on the final selling price.

Thus, the challenge is to make the correct decisions during the product design stage so that subsequent costs (material, labour & overheads) can be kept to a minimum.

Global competition

Due to globalisation and international marketplaces such as Amazon , eBay , Alibaba , etc., the global market can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Global competition is one of the biggest challenges companies face during product development due to this large and diverse marketplace.

A company could start developing an engineering product unaware that an overseas competitor is already halfway through theirs.

Here the challenge is to design and develop a product to launch at the right place and time for the right price before your competitors.

Time pressure

Most technology-driven engineering product design companies compete on NPD cycle time , so they can launch the product first in the market. This was highlighted by Stalk’s (1988) term “time-based competition”.

Due to this global competition, the entire new product development from concept to market launch is often carried out to a very tight delivery schedule.

Without the time pressure, product design technical challenges can be managed, but due to the tight schedule technical issues have to be resolved and decisions made quickly.

Hence the challenge is to make the managerial decisions to avoid project overrun without compromising the design specification within the specified timeframe.

Dynamic environment

Although the product design and development duration depend on the product type and the industry, in general, it’s safe to say that it takes on average 9 – 12 months. It would take longer if the products need approval for FCC, CE etc.

In this period, technologies advance, customer needs change and evolve, competitors introduce similar products and the economic environment shifts.

Hence, the challenge is to make crucial decisions promptly and invest money in a constantly changing environment to succeed.

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New Product Development - The 7-Step Process Explained

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Delivering innovative products can help you gain a competitive advantage, but maintaining that advantage requires continuously delivering new products that keep pace with your customers' evolving needs. New product development is the key to building and keeping market share and customer loyalty.

What is new product development?

New product development is the end-to-end process of creating a product that has never been brought to market—from idea to concept, prototyping, developing, testing, and launch. It involves building a product strategy and roadmap to successfully guide cross-functional teams and stakeholders through the entire process.

Unlike product enhancements and upgrades that modify and improve existing products, new product development addresses the unique challenges of designing and delivering brand-new products. This article discusses the seven stages of new product development, some challenges Agile teams face along the way, and how you can succeed.

The 7 stages of new product development

Successful Agile software development takes careful planning and good project management practices . The seven stages of new product development guide you through the process by breaking the work into stages or steps.

1. Generating ideas

Every new product begins with a problem and ideas to solve it. Ideas may come from within the company, such as the customer service team, or from outside via customer and market research. In this phase, it's important to gather all ideas without discrimination. The more ideas you can brainstorm, the better.

Products such as Jira Product Discovery help product teams structure the chaos of prolific ideas. Ideas can be supported by data, customer feedback, sales input, support tickets, and more to help shape what the product team should focus on, creating ongoing feedback loops. Idea generation is most effective as a team activity with the outcome of developing the essential elements for a new product. 

To help you prioritize ideas, methods such as a SWOT or Competitive analysis take the guess-work out of the process. When generating ideas, having a clear understanding of where opportunities exist and knowing how the competition stacks up can lead to brainstorming disruptive and game-changing ideas.

2. Screening ideas

Agile teams can use Jira Product Discovery matrixes to view a large number of ideas, using criteria such as impact, effort, and confidence level before scoring and selecting which ideas to move into the next phase. Gathering and organizing product ideas in a centralized tool makes it easier for product teams to prioritize which ideas or features will drive the most impact.

Scoring ideas by product development effort versus the overall impact of the solution is an excellent way to focus on those with the most impact. The SWOT and competitive analysis templates from step 1 can provide the foundation for where to place priorities. 

You can also identify good ideas that are simply not right for this new product but may be suitable for future products and the goals of the team. Screening ideas can be difficult, but aligning each good idea to your goals and comparing its impact to other ideas will help identify the most impactful opportunities.

3. Creating a product strategy

After selecting ideas to develop into a new product, it's time to create your product strategy. This is a concise definition of the need that the new product meets. A good product strategy includes the vision, target market or user, position in the industry, features and benefits, and the value the new product brings to the business. This phase involves creating a clear definition of the requirements.

Confluence offers a strategic plan template that can help you refine your strategy messaging, remove ambiguity, and clearly communicate the goal. From here, the Confluence requirements template walks you through the process of outlining your objectives and success metrics, listing assumptions and options to address them, and adding supporting documentation. These efforts include prototyping and validating with customers, ensuring the product being built will be something that customers actually want.

4. Building a product roadmap

A product roadmap is an action plan. It outlines product functionality and release schedules and helps you manage new product development. Think of the roadmap as the core communication tool for short- and long-term efforts that align with your business goals. It's a shared source of truth for a product’s vision, direction, priorities, and progress over time. Creating a great product roadmap keeps your entire team working together and moving in the same direction (try our product roadmap template ). They also make it easy to check in on the work at any time throughout the product development life cycle.

Product teams using Jira Product Discovery can then share their product strategy using always-up-to-date, custom roadmaps to present which ideas will be built, when, and why.

5. Prototyping

Time to market is critical for new product development, and your ability to rapidly prototype and develop products ensures viable solutions. Jira Product Discovery’s integration with software development tools like Jira  makes it easy to seamlessly connect your entire software delivery lifecycle.

Defects and change requests are simply a fact of new product development, but concise tracking and issue management keep everyone on your team informed, organized, and on schedule. Testing can span both internal quality assurance (QA) teams as well as customers and end users engaged in alpha, beta, or user acceptance testing. Jira  is the leading tool that Agile teams use for testing, in part because it optimizes the QA workflow by writing and managing test scripts, tracking test cases, and managing defects. 

The product roadmap template from the previous step, along with other Confluence project planning templates , also inform testing and help ensure you miss nothing.

7. Product launch

You only get one chance to make a good first impression, and launching a new product requires careful planning and delivery. Every step in the process is a building block to a successful launch. Confluence’s product launch template helps ensure a smooth launch.

Additionally, sales and marketing, HR, and legal teams are already using your product strategy and roadmap to align messaging, identify opportunities, and ensure regulatory compliance. Using Jira , they can seamlessly connect their work with the product team’s. It provides a streamlined UI and integrations with the tools they use daily, such as Gantt charts and spreadsheets.

4 main types of product development

There are four types of product development, including:

• New product development : These are products that haven’t been released in the market before, such as software applications that solve new or novel customer problems. 
• New product categories : These products may not be new to the marketplace, but they are new to the company developing them. For example, a software company may expand their offering to include products within the category they currently develop, such as adding tax accounting to their portfolio of personal finance applications. 
• Product line extensions : These expand the products offered within the organization’s existing range of products, such as adding new industries within a category. For example, a company may develop accounting software for the construction industry and decide to extend their accounting software to the airline industry.
• Product enhancements : These are new features and capabilities within existing products. Companies generally design them to provide customers with new or added value. Enhancements respond to changes in the market, performance issues, or new competitive products. 

Example of new product development

Whether creating a new product that hasn’t been seen in the market before, or expanding an existing application to address new geographic locations, understanding the time it will take to develop is essential. 

Jira insights help teams make data-driven decisions based on their own historical progress. Insights can come from every aspect of the product development process and provide continuous improvement opportunities with each new product development project.  

3 challenges teams encounter in the new product development process

Great tools can help alleviate the challenges of new product development. Understanding these challenges and how to address them can keep your team on track for a successful launch.

1. Defining clear requirements

When speed is important, the requirements often become an ironclad set of instructions. While clear requirements are necessary, Agile teams must have a shared understanding of and empathy for the customer. Include various members of your team in requirements-gathering activities, such as customer interviews. When designers, developers, and QA share an understanding of user stories, they can produce results more quickly and accurately without maintaining rigid rules.

Confluence’s requirements template gives you the power to capture and update assumptions, use cases, UX design, and scope together.

2. Estimating the development effort

Working with realistic project timelines is essential for bringing new products to market and gaining a competitive advantage. However, product development tasks are notoriously difficult to estimate, and new product development can be even harder. Break work into smaller tasks for more accurate estimates. In addition to giving you more flexibility with resource assignments, smaller tasks minimize the impact on your overall project when something takes longer than expected.

Many Agile teams have switched from traditional estimates to story points—units that measure the effort teams require to fully implement a user story. A user story is an informed explanation of a feature from the user's perspective. With Jira, Agile teams track story points, reflect, and quickly recalibrate estimates.

3. Siloed tools

Collaboration is a critical component in your team's success and the success of their products. Development teams use a variety of specialized tools, such as visual design tools for creating mock-ups and instant messaging apps for hosting team discussions. No single tool can provide the specialized functionality for all the needs of the development team. Jira Product Discovery and Jira integrate with a wide range of specialized development tools to easily collect and incorporate important information.

How long does new product development take?

The time to develop a new product can vary widely based on the complexity of that product. For example, developing an application that securely processes credit card payments may take magnitudes longer than developing software to track exercise statistics. But a few tips can help reduce the time to market while maintaining quality. 

Expert tips from Atlassian for new product development

Understand the customer.

Begin with the customer’s needs in mind. The time you spend early, interviewing customers and gathering input, helps create a clear product strategy. The entire team should understand the problem they are solving for the customer. It will keep the team on track when they make decisions during development. 

Foster team collaboration

When the team has the tools for seamless collaboration, generating ideas, prioritizing issues, and solving problems is much easier. Today’s product development teams include a wide range of cross-functional roles. The best way to prevent silos and keep the team working together is with collaboration, respect, and genuine appreciation for each other’s contributions. Centralized tools such as Jira Product Discovery and Jira help foster this.

Define the requirements

A good product specification outlines the purpose, what the client needs the product to do, the technical and functional requirements to achieve that, design mockups, and even release plans. This foundational document takes time to create, but it helps teams refine and clarify fuzzy requirements and align on the scope of the project. 

Optimize resource allocation

Resource allocation is among the hardest aspects of new product development, so the roadmap must be well-defined before you begin. Understand the tasks included in the project, their dependencies, and the resources required. Visual workflows can help teams identify when you underutilize or overcommit resources. They can also highlight bottlenecks and roadblocks to allow teams to quickly adjust and stay on track. 

Jira makes new product development easier

Jira  provides success tools for new product development teams to collaborate on and manage work from idea to product launch. Agile teams have made Jira the leading solution for new product development.

Jira Product Discovery is a dedicated tool that aids teams in crucial stages of product development. It helps Agile teams gather and prioritize ideas and align everyone with product roadmaps. 

With Jira Product Discovery matrixes and criteria, you can easily select which ideas to move ahead with, enhancing the experience of product development.

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Product Research: Definition, Importance, and Stages

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Product research helps create products that consumers demand like a road plan. It helps companies determine what their customers want and need as well as how to create unique items. This study is helpful at every stage, from ideation to evaluating a product’s performance following launch. This article will discuss the value of product research, its several phases, and some best practices for conducting it.

Table of Content

What is Product Research?

• Importance of Product Research

Why and How do different Product Teams do different types of Product Research?

Why does product research matter for product teams, when to perform product research.

• Product Research Stages
• Choosing a product research methodology
• Elements of Successful Product Research

How to measure the success of your Product Research?

Conclusion: product research, faqs: product research.

Product research in product management is a type of marketing research that gathers data on the features and attributes that potential buyers are hoping to see in a product, primarily before the product’s release and availability. Product research enables businesses to learn what their customers want, enabling them to customize their offerings to meet their demands. Both fresh product concepts and already-available items can be improved with the use of this study.

Importance of Product Research:

Product research is a crucial step in the creation of new products and can be done at various phases of the process. Product research assists a company in producing goods that consumers want. Gaining a competitive edge and a dominant position in the market is facilitated by this.

A thoroughly thought-out product will far more effectively satisfy the needs of the buyer. When releasing a product in a market with several competitors, product research becomes even more crucial. Gaining insight into the features and traits that customers value can be quite helpful in developing a solution that addresses problems with competing offerings.

Even the most creative idea runs the danger of failing if you don’t know what your customers want from your product. You may better connect your product concepts with customer needs by conducting product research.

• Recognise consumer demands and pain spots. Your product should address the most important problems that customers are facing, but how can it do so if you don’t know what those problems are? Product research aids in the collection of information and behavioural insights that you need to comprehend user problems and develop the necessary solutions.
• Align user demands with business objectives: Developing a product roadmap that benefits both users and your business requires an awareness of consumers’ needs and how they relate to your product and business objectives
• Greater room for accuracy and innovation: You can create products that your clients will enjoy and find creative solutions to their challenges when you know exactly what they need.
• Obtain a competitive advantage by studying your rivals. This will help you determine what features to develop and how to set your product apart from the competition.
• Prioritisation made simpler and more effective: With product research, your team as a whole knows exactly how to rank efforts in order to satisfy customers, which makes managing your product backlog easier.
• Align user demands with business objectives: Developing a product roadmap that benefits both users and your business requires an awareness of consumers’ needs and how they relate to your product and business objectives.

According to our 2023 Continuous Product Discovery Report, most teams conduct research at problem discovery (59%) and problem validation (57%), with only 36% researching post-launch.

The consensus is that product teams don’t think that’s enough—78% think they could research more often: which means there’s a big opportunity for you to implement regular research at all stages of the product research process.

Here’s when to conduct research on your product:

• Formulating a hypothesis at the problem discovery stage, based on user insights
• In the process of validating your idea through problems
• In the process of developing concepts and coming up with solutions, assess your progress.
• While you’re sorting through many concepts to determine which ones your users appreciate most,
• Early wireframes should be tested during solution definition and after you have your first design.
• Following the creation of a prototype, evaluate its direction and usefulness.
• Examine modifications made to earlier prototypes during validation and testing.
• Following development and launch to gather input and organise your next moves
• Prior to releasing a new feature or optimising a product, find out what people think.

Product Research Stages:

The process of conducting product research involves several stages:

1. Prior to Research Launch:

Product research can be used in the early phases to find and evaluate fresh concepts. By eliminating product development expenses in the ideas that are dismissed, this testing will contribute to cost reduction.

Product research can assist businesses in later phases of product development by determining which features should be kept and which ones can be dropped.

2. Evaluation and Input:

Customers are also tested on a recently developed product to find out what has to be changed, such as the packaging. Research requires a great deal of testing. Even with thorough research, a poorly tested product may still not work out. Testing can be conducted internally or with real clients through trials, offers, small groups, etc.

3. Soft Launch Research:

Before being introduced to the target audiences, the majority of the items undergo a soft launch. The purpose of the soft launch is to get input from prospective consumers and make beneficial adjustments to the product. Small groups or regions are the target of test marketing, and the results are verified. A product may need to be reevaluated and put through another round of study if the soft launch is unsuccessful.

4. Research After Launch:

The product is released onto the market after everything is finished. Even though test marketing is carried out, outcomes may alter when it is introduced to a wider audience. Therefore, it is crucial to observe and comprehend how customers behave and react to the recently released product or its variety. Following the product’s debut, customer satisfaction is evaluated. The most often utilised methods in product research are surveys, interviews, and focus groups. The product’s next steps can be planned based on this feedback.

Choosing a product research methodology:

Product development and research involve some work. You can conduct two different kinds of study, and each has advantages.

• Primary research
• Secondary research

Primary research:

Primary research is the initial kind of product research; it involves your organization gathering information directly from potential consumers. Research falls into two categories: qualitative and quantitative research.

• Qualitative research: Investigating the features of the product is made easier with the use of qualitative research. Asking questions about a customer’s motives and behaviors can help you understand why they utilize a product. You can use some kind of focus group or perform an open-ended product research poll to do this.
• quantitative research: Statistics from online surveys, polls, and other data are used in quantitative research since they help determine how well consumers would like a product. Statistics and numerical results will show how much or how little they like the product.

Secondary Research:

It is secondary research that yields information on buyer groups. Public resources, such as the Bureau of Labour Statistics or private research papers, can aid in your understanding of your industry. Additionally, your business might have useful internal data from marketing, finance, or accounting that can be used to better understand your target market’s preferences for certain items. When you polish your product ideas into something that consumers will actually want to buy, primary and secondary research will provide you with insights that will save you time and money.

Elements of Successful Product Research:

Product research is essential to prevent poor decisions being made throughout the development process, to spot possible problems with your product, and to gain a comprehensive understanding of your target market. You may develop a well-thought-out plan for developing a product that customers will adore with the aid of this research.

However, in order for your research to be successful, you must take the following proactive measures:

1. Employ impartial and precise data collection techniques:

Your research’s main objective is to gather precise information about how your target market uses your product, including what they like and dislike, what they need and want, and what problems they run into. However, employing shaky data collection techniques will render your research inapplicable or non-actionable. The best way to make sure the information you gather is impartial and correct is to use dependable techniques like as customer interviews, surveys, and tools that offer consistent real-time insights into the product experience (like Hotjar!). Making truly customer-centric decisions to create the best product is only possible with reliable data.

2. Perform in-depth comparative and competitive analysis:

Product research is essential for understanding your competitors and your place in the market, in addition to being useful for researching clients and their demands. Analyse the products, target market, and operational procedures of your rivals in great detail. This will assist you in determining what your audience finds effective, where there are gaps in your offering, and how to improve and streamline your product for your clients. Comparative analysis is a useful tool to supplement your research efforts when determining what you are missing out on. Examine your rivals’ offerings and determine what sets them apart from you in terms of features. This will highlight your areas of weakness and assist you in developing an optimisation strategy for improved performance and client satisfaction.

3. Utilise already published study findings:

Trade and market studies, which are analysis reports from institutions and organisations in your industry, can provide you with useful information about how companies have improved their product processes over time and show shifts in consumer patterns. This gives your research a historical perspective in addition to your first-hand knowledge, allowing you to find new product opportunities by drawing inspiration from past successes and/or lessons learned from failures. For instance, you might discover a creative approach to get input from customers or a productive way to test features of a product that you had not considered. Historical data can be used to investigate this concept.

4. Divide results according to corporate objectives:

If you can’t use the results of your product research to improve your product and make better judgements, it’s useless. Now for segmentation: grouping your study results according to company objectives helps to ensure that data is not mistranslated or lost. In order to help the members of the product team make informed decisions, you can also record your findings. Moreover, segmentation can assist you in coordinating your immediate and long-term objectives to increase the research’s future value.

It might be difficult to determine the efficacy of your research approach at the outset, as concrete product results are only apparent after you have received feedback on the final product.

Adding Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to your product at the outset will help you understand how research is being used to benefit your consumers and business.

Product research is necessary to develop effective, client-focused solutions. It entails being aware of market trends, industry standards, and rivalry at different phases of growth. Using objective data collecting, doing a detailed competitive analysis, and utilising previous research are essential to success. Businesses can acquire a competitive advantage, guarantee long-term profitability, and match their offerings with client needs by giving research first priority. Every stage of the development process is informed by regular research, which helps organisations stay flexible in the face of changing market conditions and produce products that appeal to their target market.

What is a product research?

Product research is a type of marketing research that gathers data on the features and attributes that potential buyers are hoping to see in a product, primarily before the product’s release and availability.

What stages does product research go through?

In product research, theories are developed during problem discovery, concepts are validated through issues, concept development progress is monitored, early wireframes are tested, prototypes are assessed, and post-launch assessments are carried out.

What is a tool for product research?

In order to support well-informed decision-making in product creation, a product research tool is a tool or piece of software that helps collect and analyse data about consumer preferences, market trends, and competitive environments.

Which four categories of new product research exist?

The pre-launch research, customer evaluation and input, soft launch research prior to wide distribution, and post-launch research to collect customer feedback are the four categories of new product research.

What benefits can product research offer?

Product research has several benefits, such as averting bad choices during development, seeing possible problems, getting a thorough grasp of the target market, coordinating user needs with corporate goals, and eventually producing goods that satisfy consumers and differentiate themselves in the market.

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Product Research - Meaning, Importance, Stages & Example

What is product research.

Product research is the process of marketing research that is done to get information on the desired characteristics and specifications of a product expected by the potential customers mainly before the launch and availability of the product. Product research helps companies to understand what the customers really want, so that the product can be tailored to match the needs of the customer.

This research can help to refine new product ideas as well as improve the existing products in the market.

Importance of Product Research

Product research is a very important activity in new product development – it can be carried out at several stages of new product development. Product research helps an organization make products which are expected by the customers. This helps have an competitive advantage and leadership position in the market.

A well researched product will meet the requirements of the customer in a much better way. Product research even more important when you are launching a product in the market where there are lot of competitors. Knowing the customer's feedback on the features, characteristics can really help make a product which solves the existing products' issues in the market.

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Product Research Stages

There are various stages in the product research process:

1. Before Launch Research

In the initial stages, product research can be carried out to identify and screen new ideas. This testing will help reduce costs by avoiding product development costs in the discarded ideas.

In the later stages of product development, product research can help companies to identify which features are important and hence retain them and which features can be discarded.

2. Testing and Feedback

A newly developed product is also tested with customers, to identify any changes to be made to packaging etc. Testing is very important when it comes to research. A well research but not well tested product may still end up failing. Testing can be done in-house or through actual customers through small groups, trials, offers etc.

3. Soft Launch Research

Most of the products are soft launched before being launched across the target markets. The soft launch is used for gathering feedback from potential customers and making changes in the product which can benefit. Test marketing is done for small groups or areas and the response is validated. If the soft launch is not a success, then a product need to go through the research stage again and may be relook at the product.

4. Post Launch Research

Once everything is done, the product is launched in the market. Even though test marketing is done but when it is launched for a larger population, things may go different. Hence it is very important to see an understand the customer behavior and response to the newly launched product or its variant. Once the product is launched, consumer satisfaction with the product is tested. Most common techniques used in product research include focus group discussions, interviews and surveys. Based on this feedback, next steps can be planned for the product.

Product Research Example

Many times we see that companies do test marketing for a new product through a promotion or an offer. They launch these products in small quantity in retail stores and see if the customers are liking it or buying. In trade events and exhibitions we see stalls for trying the product to gather feedback. All these activities are part of the product research.

Hence, this concludes the definition of Product Research along with its overview.

This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team . It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

Browse the definition and meaning of more similar terms. The Management Dictionary covers over 1800 business concepts from 5 categories.

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Research and Development (R&D) vs. Product Development

What Is Research and Development (R&D)?

Research and development is the practice or business unit involved with developing or enhancing new products and services. Often in research and development, companies or governments conceptualize new products. The research portion occurs when a company's R&D team tests the viability of a potential product. This is the act of discovering new sciences that can be used to create new products. The development portion comes after the research and is the act of turning the discovered science into a useful product that the company can market and sell.

Companies invest in research and development when their product lines become outdated, to gain or maintain a competitive edge, or when competitors create similar or superior products. Research and development is vital for the sustained growth and success of a company.

Research and development activities can differ among companies within an industry and across different industries, and they can be assigned in-house or to contracted third-parties. Many companies contain their R&D responsibilities in-house to protect intellectual property.

What Is Product Development?

On the other hand, product development is the entire process of researching, designing, creating, testing , marketing, and selling new products. Research and development is essentially the first step in developing a new product, but product development is not exclusively research and development. It is the entire product life cycle , from conception to sale.

Product development is also not exclusive to designing, implementing, and selling new products. Existing products can go through product development to revamp old features or add new features so the product sells better or adds greater value to consumers. Any time a new product is created and sold—or any time an existing product has added features and is resold—it is going through product development.

Research and Development vs. Product Development

The difference between research and development and product development is that research and development is the conception phase in the product life cycle , while product development is the entire process of designing, creating, and marketing new products or existing products with new features.

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New Products Research

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New Product Research

Successful new products are essential to a company's growth and survival.

We believe new products to be one of the most important applications of marketing research, but one of the most difficult to execute in practice. New products can be concept-driven or product-driven. The implicit model that underlies the following paragraphs is concept-driven (i.e., concept followed by product), but keep in mind that you can also start with a product and work "backward" to build a concept and positioning.

New product development must have focal points to have any chance of success. Focal points include definition of the target market, determination of the product category, and/or definition of the problem to solve or opportunity to exploit. These focal points are largely managerial judgments. Once some of the basic focal points are identified, then Decision Analyst can help make the effort successful.

Qualitative Explorations

Once the target audience is identified (even if not totally precise), and some notion of the product category (or human need) is established, then qualitative research is the first step. The purpose is to develop in-depth understanding of the target consumer—their motivations, perceptions, fears, and preferences. Perceptions of competitive products can be explored. Unmet needs can be identified. New product ideas can be sought. The qualitative exploration serves to identify new product possibilities as well as refine the target-market definition for those possibilities. Qualitative research is also useful in determining the starting points for ideation.

Innovation Services

Building on the foundation of understanding provided by the qualitative research, Decision Analyst uses its Imaginators® panel of 2,000 exceptionally creative individuals to help generate new product ideas. These ideation sessions can be conducted online or offline, following creative processes developed by Decision Analyst. A typical all-day ideation session of eight Imaginators® produces from 400 to 600 unique new-product ideas or idea fragments. Decision Analyst’s Innovation Team then translates this raw ideation material into new product concepts. These concepts can then be refined with qualitative research before going into quantitative testing.

Concept Testing

Concept testing identifies potentially successful new products early on, so that you can focus limited research and development resources (and limited marketing resources) on the new product concepts with the greatest probability of consumer acceptance. Decision Analyst provides a suite of concept testing systems and services.

Brand Name Research

Selecting a name for a new product is an important step in new product development. NameScreen® is our online system to identify the best names for final evaluation. Typically, final names are tested in the context of package, concept, or product testing, so that all variables are implicitly incorporated into the name test.

Packaging Research

Package graphics and copy are critical to new product success. Decision Analyst offers a suite of package-testing services to help develop a winning package that can help generate trial of the new product and project the appropriate brand image.

Product Testing

New products must be optimal to have a reasonable chance for success. Product testing is an essential step (or series of steps) in the development of a new product. Decision Analyst offers a range of product-testing services to help ensure that the new product will be successful.

Conceptor® Volumetric Forecasting

With our Conceptor® simulation models, year-one sales of a new product can be forecast, based on concept-testing scores, product-testing results, marketing-plan inputs, and media spending plans.

Test Market Evaluation

Real-world testing of new products is always recommended, if time and budgets permit. Actual store tests and/or actual test markets provide the most reliable evaluation of a new product. Decision Analyst is expert at designing and executing test markets for new products.

Product Clinics

Our automotive research group conducts static clinics, dynamic clinics, and 3D projection digital imaging clinics. These clinics range in size from small single city evaluations in the U.S. to large-scale multi-country clinics. Each clinic is conducted by a dedicated team, led by a senior researcher experienced in all aspects of conducting clinics. Data is captured using handheld devices to assure fast delivery of data tabulations. Presentations of clinic results can be provided within 24 hours of the conclusion of the clinic in-person or via Web-based meeting.

New Product Research Services

Decision Analyst is a leading global marketing research and analytical consulting firm, with over 45 years of experience in new products research and consulting. Our staff has worked on hundreds of successful new products. With our worldwide online panels and interactive systems, targeted innovation processes, and analytical systems, we can bring transformational change and acceleration of pace to your new product development efforts.

For more information on New Product Research, please contact Jerry W. Thomas , Chief Executive Officer, by emailing him at [email protected] , or by calling 1-800-ANALYSIS (262-5974) or 1-817-640-6166 .

Marketing Research and Insight Glossary

Definitions, common uses and explanations of 1,500+ key market research terms and phrases.

What is "New product research"?

New product research definition.

Marketing research focused on evaluating product design, package design, product usage, and consumer acceptance of new products.

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research and development

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research and development , in industry , two intimately related processes by which new products and new forms of old products are brought into being through technological innovation .

Research and development, a phrase unheard of in the early part of the 20th century, has since become a universal watchword in industrialized nations. The concept of research is as old as science; the concept of the intimate relationship between research and subsequent development, however, was not generally recognized until the 1950s. Research and development is the beginning of most systems of industrial production. The innovations that result in new products and new processes usually have their roots in research and have followed a path from laboratory idea, through pilot or prototype production and manufacturing start-up, to full-scale production and market introduction. The foundation of any innovation is an invention . Indeed, an innovation might be defined as the application of an invention to a significant market need. Inventions come from research—careful, focused, sustained inquiry, frequently trial and error. Research can be either basic or applied, a distinction that was established in the first half of the 20th century.

Basic research is defined as the work of scientists and others who pursue their investigations without conscious goals, other than the desire to unravel the secrets of nature. In modern programs of industrial research and development, basic research (sometimes called pure research) is usually not entirely “pure”; it is commonly directed toward a generalized goal, such as the investigation of a frontier of technology that promises to address the problems of a given industry. An example of this is the research being done on gene splicing or cloning in pharmaceutical company laboratories.

Applied research carries the findings of basic research to a point where they can be exploited to meet a specific need, while the development stage of research and development includes the steps necessary to bring a new or modified product or process into production. In Europe , the United States , and Japan the unified concept of research and development has been an integral part of economic planning , both by government and by private industry.

The first organized attempt to harness scientific skill to communal needs took place in the 1790s, when the young revolutionary government in France was defending itself against most of the rest of Europe. The results were remarkable. Explosive shells, the semaphore telegraph, the captive observation balloon, and the first method of making gunpowder with consistent properties all were developed during this period.

The lesson was not learned permanently, however, and another half century was to pass before industry started to call on the services of scientists to any serious extent. At first the scientists consisted of only a few gifted individuals. Robert W. Bunsen, in Germany, advised on the design of blast furnaces. William H. Perkin, in England, showed how dyes could be synthesized in the laboratory and then in the factory. William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), in Scotland, supervised the manufacture of telecommunication cables. In the United States, Leo H. Baekeland, a Belgian, produced Bakelite, the first of the plastics. There were inventors, too, such as John B. Dunlop, Samuel Morse, and Alexander Graham Bell , who owed their success more to intuition , skill, and commercial acumen than to scientific understanding.

While industry in the United States and most of western Europe was still feeding on the ideas of isolated individuals, in Germany a carefully planned effort was being mounted to exploit the opportunities that scientific advances made possible. Siemens, Krupp, Zeiss, and others were establishing laboratories and, as early as 1900, employed several hundred people on scientific research. In 1870 the Physicalische Technische Reichsanstalt (Imperial Institute of Physics and Technology) was set up to establish common standards of measurement throughout German industry. It was followed by the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft (later renamed the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science), which provided facilities for scientific cooperation between companies.

In the United States, the Cambria Iron Company set up a small laboratory in 1867, as did the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1875. The first case of a laboratory that spent a significant part of its parent company’s revenues was that of the Edison Electric Light Company, which employed a staff of 20 in 1878. The U.S. National Bureau of Standards was established in 1901, 31 years after its German counterpart, and it was not until the years immediately preceding World War I that the major American companies started to take research seriously. It was in this period that General Electric , Du Pont, American Telephone & Telegraph, Westinghouse, Eastman Kodak, and Standard Oil set up laboratories for the first time.

Except for Germany, progress in Europe was even slower. When the National Physical Laboratory was founded in England in 1900, there was considerable public comment on the danger to Britain’s economic position of German dominance in industrial research, but there was little action. Even in France, which had an outstanding record in pure science , industrial penetration was negligible.

World War I produced a dramatic change. Attempts at rapid expansion of the arms industry in the belligerent as well as in most of the neutral countries exposed weaknesses in technology as well as in organization and brought an immediate appreciation of the need for more scientific support. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research in the United Kingdom was founded in 1915, and the National Research Council in the United States in 1916. These bodies were given the task of stimulating and coordinating the scientific support to the war effort, and one of their most important long-term achievements was to convince industrialists, in their own countries and in others, that adequate and properly conducted research and development were essential to success.

At the end of the war the larger companies in all the industrialized countries embarked on ambitious plans to establish laboratories of their own; and, in spite of the inevitable confusion in the control of activities that were novel to most of the participants, there followed a decade of remarkable technical progress. The automobile, the airplane, the radio receiver, the long-distance telephone, and many other inventions developed from temperamental toys into reliable and efficient mechanisms in this period. The widespread improvement in industrial efficiency produced by this first major injection of scientific effort went far to offset the deteriorating financial and economic situation.

The economic pressures on industry created by the Great Depression reached crisis levels by the early 1930s, and the major companies started to seek savings in their research and development expenditure. It was not until World War II that the level of effort in the United States and Britain returned to that of 1930. Over much of the European continent the depression had the same effect, and in many countries the course of the war prevented recovery after 1939. In Germany Nazi ideology tended to be hostile to basic scientific research, and effort was concentrated on short-term work.

The picture at the end of World War II provided sharp contrasts. In large parts of Europe industry had been devastated, but the United States was immensely stronger than ever before. At the same time the brilliant achievements of the men who had produced radar, the atomic bomb , and the V-2 rocket had created a public awareness of the potential value of research that ensured it a major place in postwar plans. The only limit was set by the shortage of trained persons and the demands of academic and other forms of work.

Since 1945 the number of trained engineers and scientists in most industrial countries has increased each year. The U.S. effort has stressed aircraft, defense, space, electronics , and computers. Indirectly, U.S. industry in general has benefited from this work, a situation that compensates in part for the fact that in specifically nonmilitary areas the number of persons employed in the United States is lower in relation to population than in a number of other countries.

Outside the air, space, and defense fields the amount of effort in different industries follows much the same pattern in different countries, a fact made necessary by the demands of international competition. (An exception was the former Soviet Union , which devoted less R and D resources to nonmilitary programs than most other industrialized nations.) An important point is that countries like Japan, which have no significant aircraft or military space industries, have substantially more manpower available for use in the other sectors. The preeminence of Japan in consumer electronics, cameras, and motorcycles and its strong position in the world automobile market attest to the success of its efforts in product innovation and development.

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Test Marketing in New Product Development

• Jay E. Klompmaker,
• G. David Hughes,
• Russell I. Haley

To every marketing executive, the necessity and value of test marketing are often murky issues. The problem is partly that new products aren’t developed and put through their paces in a systematic enough way to let marketing men know when a test market is really in order. Compounding this difficulty is that the goals of […]

The executive must weigh a myriad of information as he decides whether to go with a new product. To help him in his decision, he may consider test marketing to gather yet more information.

• JK Jay E. Klompmaker is assistant professor of business administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include advertising media scheduling, marketing productivity analysis, and the role of salesmen in market planning.
• GH Mr. Hughes is Burlington Industries Professor of Business Administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has published extensively on marketing management topics. His present research interest is in microcomputer applications in strategic management. This is his third HBR article.
• RH Russell I. Haley is associate professor of business administration at the University of New Hampshire and president of Haley, Overholser and Associates, a consulting firm.

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Whether you’re renovating your brand, launching a new product or service or developing new marketing activations, NIQ BASES will elevate your in-market success through practical, action-oriented insights underpinned by the industry’s gold standard predictive models.

Only NIQ BASES continuously updates its models with the world’s largest set of behavioral data, giving you the confidence to make the right decisions in a rapidly-changing world.

The NIQ BASES formula for Success

In-market success requires a winning combination of…

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Identify growth opportunities, screen ideas and claims, and build the ideal concept for your consumer.

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Optimize product formulations, assess concept-product fit and verify the full mix, strong activation, confirm ideal assortment and pricing, perfect pack, optimized advertising, and forecast with superior accuracy.

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Companies working consistently with NIQ BASES experience measurable improvements to their outcomes.

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We are committed to excellence. Working with NIQ BASES means you can expect the following:

Data quality -always

Poor data yields unreliable results. Our gold-standard respondent data and predictive models ensure unparalleled accuracy and reliability.

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Research results are translated into specific guidance on actions required to ensure you hit your KPI’s and deliver in-market success.

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Every project is led by a subject-matter expert, from demand, idea & concept, through to product & sensory, forecasting, pack, ad and portfolio.

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What is product discovery? Process, techniques, and templates

Have you ever built a product that received negative feedback? Or built a feature no one ended up using? Maybe you built something that people used for a while but quickly tired of.

These scenarios are commonly associated with a lack of proper product discovery.

In this guide, we’ll discuss everything you need to know to minimize the risk of spending valuable development resources on products that your customers will never use.

What is product discovery?

Building features and products is a costly process. However, many product teams commit to their assumptions about user needs, spend untold resources based on those assumptions, and later discover that their shiny new features add no value.

This is where product discovery comes in.

Definition of product discovery

Product discovery is a customer-centric process that helps product teams understand their users’ needs so they can build products or features that add value.

Product discovery should be the very first stage of the product development cycle. It’s the decision-making process the product team should follow to decide what to build and define the solution’s scope.

Through various tools and techniques, product discovery enables companies to validate their product assumptions accurately.

Origin and history

Product discovery as a concept has been around since the creation of the first software.

However, product discovery as a systematic process was coined by Marty Cagan with the release of the first edition of his book, Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love , in 2007.

Inspired covers the base process of product discovery , which involves creating assumptions, validating them, deciding, and repeating the process to always be in touch with your customers.

Product discovery process and techniques

The product discovery process encompasses a variety of techniques each designed to help you understand your customers’ needs and decide what to implement. These activities help the product team to validate their assumptions and prioritize accordingly, minimizing the risk of failure.

The product discovery process includes techniques such as:

• MVP development
• Customer development
• Assumption tests
• Customer visits
• Customer journey mapping
• Design thinking
• Impact mapping
• Usability tests
• Customer interviews and focus groups
• Demand tests
• Story mapping
• Jobs-to-be-done (JTBD)
• Experience mapping
• Opportunity solution tree (OST)

You’ve been using product discovery techniques all along without knowing that you were performing a product discovery process.

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The sheer number of product discovery activities can distract some product teams from the main objective, which is to help you decide what to build.

More specifically, product discovery helps you answer the following questions:

• Which problem should we solve first?
• What feature should we build to solve the most critical problem?
• Are we sure that this feature can solve problem X? If yes, what signals have we gathered?

When deciding which techniques to use as part of your product discovery process, ask yourself, “Can this help answer my questions?” Other criteria to consider include your user persona , business model, and your organizational environment.

For example, some companies don’t support or fund user research labs, so you might not be able to conduct usability tests. If that’s the case, you should select another method that can provide you with the answers you need to make your decision and to fulfill your objective.

Why is product discovery important?

Product discovery helps product teams find data and information that allows them to work on solving problems and building features that really matter to their users.

Among the many benefits of these activities, product discovery enables you to:

Find product-market fit

Avoid building what’s not needed, validate stakeholder assumptions.

Are you building a brand new product for the market? Or are you outreaching your competitors and launching a big innovative feature? Either way, your first order of business is to identify the product-market fit.

Product-market fit is achieved when you can answer the following questions:

• What is the main problem your customers face?
• Are your customers looking to solve the problem immediately or in the long term?
• What alternatives or workarounds are they using?
• What is the ideal solution for the problem they need to solve?

Product discovery activities can help you answer these questions and more. For example, you can conduct customer interviews to solicit qualitative data about customer problems. Or, you could build an MVP and perform some usability and user tests to gather feedback and validate whether you are solving a real problem through an efficient solution.

By uncovering the real customer needs through product discovery, you can avoid unnecessary investments and build only what is needed.

For example, you can use product analytics software to identify which features your customers aren’t using and facilitate a discovery workshop to dig deeper into the problem with your product team. You might also perform some customer interviews to understand the users’ concerns around those features.

These insights will guide your decision when it comes to what to build and what to not.

We all make assumptions — that goes for stakeholders and product teams alike.

Assumptions are crucial when it comes to product decisions. You might form assumptions about user behavior, the problem they face, or perhaps the likelihood your customers will use your product more if you build a certain feature.

Product discovery helps you navigate through this messy web of assumptions by giving you a framework by which to prioritize and validate your hypotheses.

For example, you could start by building an opportunity-solution tree to organize your opportunities and visualize them for the product team. Next, assign each opportunity multiple solutions and some validation methods. Based on those results, you should build only what is validated.

Product discovery is all about combining myriad techniques and methods to reach a common ground with the user. This insight should factor into your decisions around where the investment should go.

The perils of skipping product discovery

Many product teams turn into feature factory teams. That’s because most companies treat product managers as project managers and product teams as project teams — in other words, they expect output without considering the outcome.

This leads product teams to build whatever feature they assume will add value. However, if a product team skips the product discovery and turns into a feature team, you risk the following:

• Usability risk — The product/feature is hard to use and unintuitive
• Viability risk — The product/feature won’t return its expected ROI
• Value risk — The product/feature adds no value to the user
• Feasibility risk — The development/scrum team won’t be able to deliver the product/feature

Product discovery templates

Product discovery doesn’t have a universal process. Rather, it’s a mindset combined with a set of activities and techniques to aid your product decision-making.

So, where do you start? There are two templates I would recommend to help you begin your product discovery journey:

Product Discovery Ideation Session template

Product discovery workbook.

This template by Tim Herbig is focused on helping you ideate as many solutions for selected problems as possible, groom the ideas, and prepare them for validation:

Developed by Monika Konarzewska, this workbook takes you from the idea generation stage to developing and validating ideas. The template contains the most commonly used product discovery techniques and stages:

Product discovery is essential for any product team to produce outcomes and to move success metrics.

Product discovery will not only save you costs, but it will help you and your team move to the right strategic direction.

The good news is you’re not limited: product discovery encompasses more than a dozen techniques and processes that will help answer whatever questions you have about your customers’ needs. So pick what you are comfortable with, and start experimenting with your team.

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What Is Big Data?

Sherry Tiao | Senior Manager, AI & Analytics, Oracle | March 11, 2024

In This Article

Big Data Defined

The three “vs” of big data, the value—and truth—of big data, the history of big data, big data use cases, big data challenges, how big data works, big data best practices.

What exactly is big data?

The definition of big data is data that contains greater variety, arriving in increasing volumes and with more velocity. This is also known as the three “Vs.”

Put simply, big data is larger, more complex data sets, especially from new data sources. These data sets are so voluminous that traditional data processing software just can’t manage them. But these massive volumes of data can be used to address business problems you wouldn’t have been able to tackle before.

Two more Vs have emerged over the past few years: value and veracity . Data has intrinsic value. But it’s of no use until that value is discovered. Equally important: How truthful is your data—and how much can you rely on it?

Today, big data has become capital. Think of some of the world’s biggest tech companies. A large part of the value they offer comes from their data, which they’re constantly analyzing to produce more efficiency and develop new products.

Recent technological breakthroughs have exponentially reduced the cost of data storage and compute, making it easier and less expensive to store more data than ever before. With an increased volume of big data now cheaper and more accessible, you can make more accurate and precise business decisions.

Finding value in big data isn’t only about analyzing it (which is a whole other benefit). It’s an entire discovery process that requires insightful analysts, business users, and executives who ask the right questions, recognize patterns, make informed assumptions, and predict behavior.

But how did we get here?

Although the concept of big data itself is relatively new, the origins of large data sets go back to the 1960s and ‘70s when the world of data was just getting started with the first data centers and the development of the relational database.

Around 2005, people began to realize just how much data users generated through Facebook, YouTube, and other online services. Hadoop (an open source framework created specifically to store and analyze big data sets) was developed that same year. NoSQL also began to gain popularity during this time.

The development of open source frameworks, such as Hadoop (and more recently, Spark) was essential for the growth of big data because they make big data easier to work with and cheaper to store. In the years since then, the volume of big data has skyrocketed. Users are still generating huge amounts of data—but it’s not just humans who are doing it.

With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT), more objects and devices are connected to the internet, gathering data on customer usage patterns and product performance. The emergence of machine learning has produced still more data.

While big data has come far, its usefulness is only just beginning. Cloud computing has expanded big data possibilities even further. The cloud offers truly elastic scalability, where developers can simply spin up ad hoc clusters to test a subset of data. And graph databases are becoming increasingly important as well, with their ability to display massive amounts of data in a way that makes analytics fast and comprehensive.

Discover the Insights in Your Data

• Who are the criminals passing dirty money around and committing financial services fraud?
• Who has been in contact with an infected person and needs to go into quarantine?
• How can feature engineering for data science be made simpler and more efficient?

Click below to access the 17 Use Cases for Graph Databases and Graph Analytics ebook.

Big Data Benefits

• Big data makes it possible for you to gain more complete answers because you have more information.
• More complete answers mean more confidence in the data—which means a completely different approach to tackling problems.

Big data can help you address a range of business activities, including customer experience and analytics. Here are just a few.

Download your free ebook to learn about:

• New ways you can use your data
• Ways the competition could be innovating
• Benefits and challenges of different use cases

While big data holds a lot of promise, it is not without its challenges.

First, big data is…big. Although new technologies have been developed for data storage, data volumes are doubling in size about every two years. Organizations still struggle to keep pace with their data and find ways to effectively store it.

But it’s not enough to just store the data. Data must be used to be valuable and that depends on curation. Clean data, or data that’s relevant to the client and organized in a way that enables meaningful analysis, requires a lot of work. Data scientists spend 50 to 80 percent of their time curating and preparing data before it can actually be used.

Finally, big data technology is changing at a rapid pace. A few years ago, Apache Hadoop was the popular technology used to handle big data. Then Apache Spark was introduced in 2014. Today, a combination of the two frameworks appears to be the best approach. Keeping up with big data technology is an ongoing challenge.

Discover more big data resources:

Big data gives you new insights that open up new opportunities and business models. Getting started involves three key actions:

1.  Integrate Big data brings together data from many disparate sources and applications. Traditional data integration mechanisms, such as extract, transform, and load (ETL) generally aren’t up to the task. It requires new strategies and technologies to analyze big data sets at terabyte, or even petabyte, scale.

During integration, you need to bring in the data, process it, and make sure it’s formatted and available in a form that your business analysts can get started with.

2.  Manage Big data requires storage. Your storage solution can be in the cloud, on premises, or both. You can store your data in any form you want and bring your desired processing requirements and necessary process engines to those data sets on an on-demand basis. Many people choose their storage solution according to where their data is currently residing. The cloud is gradually gaining popularity because it supports your current compute requirements and enables you to spin up resources as needed.

3.  Analyze Your investment in big data pays off when you analyze and act on your data. Get new clarity with a visual analysis of your varied data sets. Explore the data further to make new discoveries. Share your findings with others. Build data models with machine learning and artificial intelligence. Put your data to work.

To help you on your big data journey, we’ve put together some key best practices for you to keep in mind. Here are our guidelines for building a successful big data foundation.

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• Talent management

human resource management (HRM)

• Nick Barney, Technology Writer
• Wesley Chai
• Shaun Sutner, News Director

What is human resource management (HRM)?

Human resource management (HRM) is the practice of recruiting, hiring, deploying and managing an organization's employees. HRM is often referred to simply as human resources (HR). A company or organization's HR department is usually responsible for creating, putting into effect and overseeing policies governing workers and the relationship of the organization with its employees. The term human resources was first used in the early 1900s, and then more widely in the 1960s, to describe the people who work for the organization, in aggregate.

HRM is employee management with an emphasis on employees as assets of the business. In this context, employees are sometimes referred to as human capital . As with other business assets, the goal is to make effective use of employees, reducing risk and maximizing return on investment ( ROI ).

The modern term human capital management ( HCM ) is often used by large and midsize companies when discussing HR technology .

The importance of human resource management

The purpose of HRM practices is to manage the people within a workplace to achieve the organization's mission and reinforce the corporate culture . When people management is done effectively, HR managers can help recruit new employees who have the skills to further the company's goals. HR professionals also aid in the training and professional development of employees to meet the organization's objectives.

A company is only as good as its employees, making HRM a crucial part of maintaining or improving the health of the business. Additionally, HR managers monitor the state of the job market to help the organization stay competitive. This could include ensuring compensation and benefits are competitive, events are planned to keep employees from burning out and job roles are adapted based on the market.

How does HRM work?

HR professionals manage the day-to-day execution of HR-related functions. Typically, human resources is a standalone department within an organization.

HR departments vary in the size, structure and nature of their individual positions. For small organizations, one HR generalist might perform a broad array of functions. Larger organizations have several HR professionals who handle specialized roles , such as recruiting, immigration and visas, talent management, employee benefits and compensation. Though these HR positions are specialized, job functions might still overlap.

Amazon is an example of a large company with multiple types of specialized HR positions. The company's career website lists the following HR job titles:

• HR assistant.
• HR business partner.
• HR manager.
• Recruiting coordinator.
• Recruiting manager.
• Immigration specialist.
• Leave of absence and accommodation specialist.
• Compensation specialist or manager.
• Benefits specialist or manager.
• Talent management specialist or manager.
• Learning and development specialist or manager.
• HR technology or process project program manager.
• HR analytics specialist or manager.

Objectives of human resource management

HRM can be broken down into the following four category objectives:

• Societal objectives. These are measures put in place to respond to the ethical and social needs or challenges of the company and its employees. This includes legal issues such as equal opportunity and equal pay for equal work.
• Organizational objectives. These are actions taken to ensure organizational efficiency, including providing the appropriate training, hiring the right number of employees for a given task and maintaining high employee retention rates.
• Functional objectives. These are the guidelines used to keep HR functioning properly within the organization. They include ensuring all HR resources are allocated to their full potential.
• Personal objectives. These are the resources used to support the personal goals of each employee. They include opportunities for education and career development, as well as maintaining employee satisfaction.

More specific objectives of HRM include the following:

• Provide and maintain productive employees.
• Make full use of the skills and abilities of each employee.
• Ensure employees have and receive the proper training.
• Build and maintain a positive employee experience with high satisfaction and quality of life, so that employees can contribute their best efforts to their work.
• Communicate company policies, procedures, rules and regulations to employees.
• Maintain ethical, legal and socially responsible policies and behaviors in the workplace.
• Manage internal and external changes that might affect employees and staffing.

Skills and responsibilities of an HR manager

HRM is typically broken into pre-employment and employment phases, as well as more specific subsections, with an HR manager assigned to each one. Areas of HRM oversight include the following:

• Employee recruitment .
• Onboarding and retention.
• Talent and workforce management .
• Job role assignment.
• Career development.
• Compensation and benefits.
• Labor law compliance .
• Performance management.
• Training and development.
• Succession planning .
• Employee engagement and recognition.
• Team building.

HR managers benefit from having skills and experience in a range of areas. The most essential HRM skills that professionals should possess include the following:

• Communication. A high-level of verbal and written capabilities is required in most HRM jobs.
• Recruitment and talent acquisition. Tasks in this area include writing job descriptions, conducting interviews, assessing candidates, negotiating offers and onboarding new employees.
• Employee relations. HR managers must have labor relations skills to address grievances and build positive employee experiences.
• Compliance with legal requirements. HR managers must be up to date with employment laws and regulations.
• Conflict management and resolution. Mediation capabilities help HR managers resolve conflicts and other difficult situations.
• Performance management. Managers must set performance standards and help employees develop skills to achieve them.
• Strategic thinking. HR manager jobs require high-level thinking, such as aligning HR strategies with the company's goals.
• Analytics. Data analysis skills help analyze workforce metrics and provide insights for decision-making.
• Adaptability. HR managers must be able to deal with changing workplace and societal issues on an ongoing basis.
• Ethics and confidentiality. These skills require knowledge of confidentiality and privacy requirements, as well as general and industry-specific ethical standards.

HRM software

Almost all areas of HRM have sophisticated software that automates HR processes to varying degrees, along with other features, such as analytics. For example, job candidate recruiting has seen enormous growth in the number of software tools and management systems that match employers and job candidates. Those systems also manage other steps in the hiring process, such as interviewing and vetting.

HRM software is often provided as on-premises systems. However, nearly every area of HR tech has moved to cloud-based software-as-a-service platforms.

There are several vendors in the HRM market, including ADP, BambooHR, HROne, Isolved, Paycom, Paylocity, Personio, Rippling, SAP and Workday.

HRM career opportunities and requirements

A bachelor's degree is typically required for a career in human resource management . Some colleges offer HRM degrees that provide a career path into an entry-level HR position. Another way to land a job in HR is to complete an undergraduate course of study in a related field, such as business administration.

Several years of experience in operations-heavy roles can be valuable when making a career transition to an HR position. For those lacking a relevant undergraduate degree or translatable work experience, there are HR-specific master's degree programs to help build the necessary knowledge, skills and qualifications.

HRM history

Modern human resource management can be traced back to the 18th century. The British Industrial Revolution gave rise to large factories and created an unprecedented spike in demand for workers.

With many of these laborers putting in long hours -- often clocking 16-hour workdays -- it became apparent that worker satisfaction and happiness had a strong positive correlation with productivity. Seeking to maximize ROI, worker satisfaction programs were introduced. Factory conditions, safety concerns and workers' rights also began getting attention in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries.

HR departments within organizations began appearing in the 20th century. They were often known as personnel management departments that dealt with legal compliance requirements and implemented worker satisfaction and safety programs. Following WWII, the U.S. Army's training programs were used as a model in some companies that started to make employee training a point of emphasis.

Personnel departments took on the human resources label in the 1970s. The primary factor that differentiates HR from personnel management is the way technology began to be used to improve communication and access to employee information.

Job opportunities for careers in HRM remain strong. Companies are recognizing the strategic difference a good human resource department can make and are investing in them accordingly. As a result, HR jobs are growing in demand.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), HRM job titles are expected to grow 5% in the U.S. between 2022 to 2023 . Salary prospects remain strong; the median annual salary for an HR manager was approximately $130,000 in May 2022, according to the BLS. For HR specialist positions, median salaries were more than $64,000 at that same time.

Can small businesses use HRM?

Small businesses might have limited resources and a smaller workforce compared to larger companies, making HRM more difficult to implement. However, HRM principles and capabilities can be advantageous for small businesses in the following ways:

• Effective hiring. Small businesses can use HRM practices to identify and attract the right talent, ensuring each employee contributes significantly to the company's success.
• Compliance. Employment laws apply to businesses of all sizes. HRM can help small businesses navigate the complex legal landscape, reducing the risk of costly legal issues.
• Employee development. HRM encourages investment in employee development, which can give small businesses a competitive advantage. Carefully designed training and development programs enhance employee skills and contribute to the company's growth.
• Conflict resolution. Small teams are especially vulnerable to conflicts and disruptions. HRM practices provide structured methods to address and resolve conflicts and maintain a harmonious work environment.
• Retention and engagement. HRM helps small businesses with close-knit work cultures foster employee engagement and loyalty, reducing turnover and recruitment costs.
• Strategic planning. HRM aligns HR strategies with business goals, ensuring every HR initiative contributes to the company's strategic plans .
• Scalability. As small businesses grow, their HR needs evolve. HRM practices can scale to accommodate changing workforce requirements and the demands of new organizational structures.

Human resource management is key to enterprise success. Learn how to choose the perfect HR software system .

Continue Reading About human resource management (HRM)

• 5 common technology challenges in human resource management
• Ways people analytics can help HR improve retention
• The best HR software and tool options to consider
• APAC buyer's guide to HRM software
• Blockchain HR technology: Use cases impacting human resources

Related Terms

Dig deeper on talent management.

succession planning

recruitment

HR technology (human resources tech)

human capital management (HCM)

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