Speed to Market - Why is it so Important
What is Speed to Market?
Speed to market (STM) is a product development term that defines the Speed a business establishes the presence of its product or service. The process covers the entire lifecycle of a product- from idea generation to its design and development to the time taken to reach the customers.
Why is it so Important?
A decrease in Speed to market gives a competitive advantage to a competitor. When a business allows its counterparts to reach the consumers before them, they get second place. Furthermore, it enables other businesses to dominate the market even with substandard products. Another disadvantage is that it gives the reputation of a copycat to the other product.
Companies invest a lot of money in innovation, and any delay in converting an idea into a product places a competitor ahead of others. Furthermore, most innovation processes largely depend on technology. Therefore, it takes a business that adapts to technological changes to stand out. Thus, a business must constantly innovate at Speed, considering rapid changes.
How to Measure Speed to Market Measuring
Speed to market depends on several factors, such as product type, complexity, and the industry. In addition, the measurement option may depend on a preferred choice. Two yardstick force measurement covers these two processes.
The duration from concept creation to when the product reaches the market.
The duration from when the product development team starts to the product launch.
However, one thing to note is that the project size and risk level also affect how fast a product reaches the market.
Business Agility in Speed to Marketing
Business Agility refers to the ability to adapt to market changes and emerging opportunities with innovative business solutions. It also requires a rapid and cost-efficient strategy.
One parameter that determines a business's Agility is faster time to market. This is because lateness erodes the addressable market involved in product sales.
Tips to Improve Business Agility
1. Manage and Optimize Workflow
It's essential to take a lean approach to manage and optimize workflow. It also involves removing unnecessary steps needed to achieve fast time to market.
2. Shorter Approval Cycle
The approval cycle plays an important role in a product launch. It's necessary to keep it short and fast. A shorter approval cycle leads to faster time to market
3. Automation
Automation is a great factor. Every business needs to automate as much as possible. Automating every process, from product deployment to testing, marketing to launch, and technological advancement, has made the automation of everything a possibility.
4. Investigate Adaptability
Changes are often rapid and inevitable. The ability to adapt gives a boost to every business. Every organization needs the readiness to change regulations, marketing channels, demand, and more.
Best Practices for Speed to Market
Start with a Detailed Roadmap
Speed to market should commence as soon as the idea generation begins. It's important to have a clear roadmap for the team to follow.
One way to start is by drafting the vision with a detailed plan for the designed product. The design helps blend business goals with user needs for consistent product success. It also helps brands to make their products sustainable for longer-term business needs.
The process for product design includes deciding on materials and workflow and determining potential risks or roadblocks to product development.
Be Focused
It's important to focus on the business idea's vision and goal. As the development team gets busy building the product, reduce the delays by focusing only on the specific product. Limit the concentration on extra features or ideas until after it goes to market.
Set Revenue Targets
Every business requires a target set for monetary terms. However, setting revenue targets for innovation is not an innovative process. It's just a means to ensure that the business remains in the market.
All innovations inherently link to a business model. Therefore, it becomes imperative for businesses to measure the success of innovative investments via the returns it provides. The idea is to inspire a faster pace of Speed to market.
Communication
Product development involves different team members at different stages. Therefore, communication must be top-notch for the teams to deliver product success effectively. The communication must remain constant, be clear, and use various channels. This will require having regular meetings to keep every team member focused and knowledgeable about other teams' work.
Develop a Marketing Strategy
Marketing strategy is an important aspect of every business.
One successful method to adopt requires using current events to boost audience engagement. It is a real-time marketing strategy that allows businesses to target interesting trends. That way, they know what the audience likes and reach them on different platforms.
Expect Change
Product development is a process that requires constant changes, so it's helpful to expect and embrace them. A way to effectively achieve this feat is to adapt and make necessary adjustments. It may also require the adding team members or modifying the product development direction.
Consider Outsourcing
Except for the core innovation process areas, a product could require resources that could be more readily available. As a result, it becomes a matter of necessity to outsource these aspects- especially for new businesses or products.
Developing a supporting partner for innovation helps to propel the STM. In addition, it may be quicker and more cost-effective to use.
Develop Pilots Ready Markets/Customers
Creating a market or customer segment becomes necessary after being in the business for some time. Market/ customer segmentation helps pilot innovation to a certain level of risk. Customer groups sometimes become co-innovators over some time. By that, they get to share the risk and rewards involved in the business investment.
Develop MVP
Investing in a minimum viable product is a great practice that gets the product out even faster. A usual development process takes up to 6 months/.; MVP requires fewer months. In addition, an MVP gives a view of how the customers feel about the product or service, making adjustments possible before launch.
A business's ability to propel the Speed to market for innovations serves as its key distinguisher in the marketplace. It also ascertains the efficient management of innovation in investments.