Reflective Report: NPD Model and Sales Forecast Pricing

Marketing requires an individual with knowledge of how advertisements and promotions can be used to make a product or service not only known but also create customer loyalty. Among the topics that are devised to make an individual, a competitive market isthe NPD model and Sales Forecast Pricing. These are the topics that I find most challenging in this module and which I believe understanding them will help me with my future role as a marketer. This report details the reasons why I believe the two topics are the most challenging and ways through which I believe they will help me in my future role as a marketer.

NPD Model

NPD is a process that kicks off with ideas, idea screening, development of concepts, and ends when the product is believed to commercialize and generate wealth (Acur, Kandemir, & Boer, 2012). With such deliberation, it is apparent that understanding this process is critical because as a marketer, I should be in a position to decide the kind of marketing strategies that can make a product commercialized. With this idea in my mind, I believe this topic is indispensable with my role as a future marketer because I will have gained knowledge on how to generate ideas that can be used to market products in a unique way.

Gaps

One of the biggest gaps is that I thought the topic can only help me advertise products and services. However, I have realized that it can help me develop and design new products. The biggest challenge is to study about what it entails to have the skills of designing new products. Nonetheless, this can only be achieved based on the company’s objective. For instance, for a company that would want to diversify its business, it is possible to design new products depending on what the company wants to achieve. However, companies that do not want to diversify their business, designing new products would only entail designing new products aimed at improving the quality of the already existing ones. In order to design an effective product, it would be necessary to explore different innovations that can help come up with a perfect product before settling on the most viable one. After settling on one idea, it would be essential to screen if it can be used to come up with the best results possible.

I also never knew that concept testing is an important aspect in business. Through the topic, I noted that helps in identifying if it is viable to continue with the development of the product. If it is viable, business analysis is also done to determine if there is a market of the new product and if it can give good returns (Bhuiyan, 2011). After it has been found that there is a market for the product and that it would bring about some good returns, the product development begins. Testing of the new product is critical to ensure that the desired results are achieved before it is introduced into the market. After the successful development of the product, the product is marketed to make it known. Understanding these concepts is not easy and proves how challenging this topic is.

How to Overcome the Gaps

One of the ways to overcome the gaps is to research widely on the topic. Apart from the course materials, I will try to research on the internet and look for case studies to improve my understanding of the topic. However, I will also try to find an internship in companies that have been successful in marketing their products and developing new products that do well in the market. It is also important to look at companies that fell down in order to understand what might have contributed to their failure. This can be of help because I will gain knowledge on how I can avoid the mistakes they made as I assume the role of a marketer in the future.

I will also try to form groups with my fellow students so that we can discuss the topic further to help one another. Some students might be having deeper insights about the topic and this can be of help if we discuss in groups and exchange ideas. Talking to the most successful marketers can also help me understand how the concepts of the topic can be channelled to the real world examples. I am sure what is learned in class cannot be important if it is not put in practice. Therefore, maybe what I see as a challenge in the topic can be an opportunity for me when I get advice from marketers in practice.

How the Knowledge Learnt From This Topic Will Help My Future Role as a Marketer

Through the topic, I have understood that marketers can use the NPD model to help companies improve their performance. With the continued competition in the market, I think this topic will be of great importance to me because I will have learned things that can be done to come up with new great ideas that can help design good products acceptable to the market. Without new ideas, it is apparent that the company just stagnates and might fall down if nothing is done to come up with new ideas and innovations.

Sales Forecast Pricing

Sales forecast pricing is a process that is used to estimate what business’s sales will be in the future. However, the forecast period ranges from monthly to an annual basis (Byrne, Moon, & Mentzer, 2011). I believe that this topic is indispensable to me in my future role as a marketer. For a company to know if there is development, forecasting helps in making decisions that help it to develop strategies for improvement. Although I know that this topic is critical in my future role as a marketer, I have some gaps that I feel are worth analysing and finding solutions to overcome them.

Gaps

The gaps that exist entailthe failure to effectively comprehend things that can be used to determine how to forecast sales. For instance, if I am forecasting sales of a restaurant, current products and services would determine the future operations.In additional I also found it challenging to comprehend that development can be based on the forecast. For instance, I would always ask myself how future estimates can be used to tell if there is development or not. However, there are factors that affect forecast based on whether they are favourable or unfavourable. Favourable factors may include things like new products doing well in the market while unfavourable factors may include negative sales of a new product. Therefore, favourable factors can help in anticipating that the future performance of the product might be negative and that there could be no development while unfavourable factors may indicate that there is good future of the performance of the product and that development is on point.

I have also found a significant connection between what determines factors that affect forecast and the results of the forecast. For instance, when there is continuous innovation, it is apparent that new products are developed and which have high quality, thus they perform well in the market (Trapero, Kourentzes, & Fildes, 2015). Thus, this is a favourable factor that helps to forecast the future of the product and development. However, when there is discontinuous innovation, this means that new products would not have the high quality that the customers need. This will lead to a low performance by the product and the forecast of its future performance would lead to underperformance, something that indicates that there is no development.

How to Overcome the Gaps

Apart from reading the course materials, I will try to do additional research about forecast pricing from other areas. For instance, the internet provides many platforms on which I can research about the topic and continue to familiarize myself with the concepts of the forecast. I think I can also have a better understanding of the concepts of sales forecast by setting up a small business and start by forecasting unit sales per month. To begin with, I will think of a business that sells in units so that it can be easier for me first before moving to another business that does not sell in units. However, I will also try to seek for past data from friends who have businesses so that I can start familiarizing myself from the already existing data. If the friends business is still in operational, I will use older past data to forecast recent past or current situation.

If I will practice forecasting using my business, this means that I will start by forecasting new products. Since there is no idea about how a new product can do in the market, I will start by simply making educated projections depending on the critical decision factors and components of the sale. On the other hand, I can also try to look for an internship so that I can get experienced people to enlighten me more on what I already know about forecasting. Forecasting prices are based on a number of factors that can be argued to be based on past and current market demand and supply. Therefore, I can enrich this understanding by just visiting commonly consumed products businesses to ascertain how they forecast prices.

How the Knowledge Learnt From This Topic Will Help My Future Role as a Marketer

The topic will greatly help me in my future role as a marketer in that I will be in a position to use the concepts of forecasting to understand how the business is performing. With this knowledge, I will be able to tell when the business is doing well and when it is stagnating or falling down. Without this knowledge I am sure that I will not comprehend when the business is underperforming and this would be risky because I may not be able to develop strategies to improve product’s quality and if it may come a time, I realize it, maybe it would be too late to change the situation. In addition, any employer requires a marketer that can help his business grow and effectively predict future performance to grow and find remedies where future forecasts indicate negative performance.

Conclusion

The course has been interesting as I was eager to learn how I can be a good marker in the future. Although there were challenges that made me feel that there were gaps, I think finding ways to overcome them is a great idea so that I can be fully versed with the topics. The two topics are indispensable in ensuring that my future role as a marketer is well informed. With NPD Model, I will be in a position to decide the kind of marketing strategies that can make a product commercialized. Without the idea of how I can design new products will make it impossible for me as a marketer to ensure that there are competitive advantage and development. It is with having the knowledge of devising ideas through innovations that new products can be developed to meet the needs of the customers. In regards to sales forecasting pricing, this will equip me with the understanding of how a product is doing and how that information can be used to grow the business. Conversely, understanding of forecasting will help me gain knowledge of the factors hindering product performance, thus I will be in a position to determine the remedies to use to rectify the situation.

References

Acur, N., Kandemir, D. & Boer, H., 2012. Strategic alignment and new product development: drivers and performance effects. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 29(2), pp.304-318.

Bhuiyan, N., 2011. A framework for successful new product development. Journal of Industrial Engineering and Management (JIEM), 4(4), pp.746-770.

Byrne, T.M.M., Moon, M.A. & Mentzer, J.T., 2011. Motivating the industrial sales force in the sales forecasting process. Industrial Marketing Management, 40(1), pp.128-138.

Trapero, J.R., Kourentzes, N. & Fildes, R., 2015. On the identification of sales forecasting models in the presence of promotions. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 66(2), pp.299-307.