Documentation On Product Marketing

CONTENTS 1. Product 2. Software product 3. Product management 3.1. Product planning 3.2. Product marketing 3.3. Product design process 3.3.1. Opportunity Identification 3.3.2. Consumer Measurement 3.3.3. Models of Consumers 3.3.4. Prediction of Market Behavior 3.3.5. Evaluation 3.3.6. Refinement 3.4. Key points of the design process 3.4.1. Pre-production design 3.4.2. Design during production 3.4.3. Post-production design feedback for future designs 3.4.4. Redesign 3.5. Product Engineering 3.5.1. Benefits by providing customized product to market 3.6. Product Development 3.6.1. The Product Development Process 3.6.2. Elements of the new product development 4. Marketing Management 4.1. Marketing 4.2. Concept of Marketing 4.3. Levels of marketing 4.4. Marketing mix 4.5. Marketing communications 5. Marketing planning

5.1. The marketing planning process 5.2. Content of the marketing plan 5.3. Detailed plans and programs 5.4. Measurement of Progress 5.5. Performance analysis 6. Software Product Marketing 6.1. Strategies to improve software product marketing 6.1.1. Expert websites 6.1.2. Web Promotion 6.2. Online Software Product Marketing 6.2.1. Basic online software marketing techniques 6.3. Steps to improve software product marketing 6.3.1. Portfolio Management: 6.3.2. Product Development: 6.3.3. Ideation: 6.4. Foundation 6.4.1. Collaboration 6.4.2. Business Intelligence 6.4.3. Requirements Management 6.5. Software Product Marketing At Non-Domestic Areas 6.5.1. Various benefits of Non-Domestic sales 6.5.2. The various drawbacks of non-domestic sales

7. Strategies for Maintaining and Improving Quality 7.1. Definitions of Quality 7.1.1. External Quality 7.1.2. Internal Quality 7.2. Strategies for improving internal and external quality

8. The Product Life Cycle

1. Product: In marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need. In retailing, products are called merchandise. In manufacturing, products are purchased as raw materials and sold as finished goods. Commodities are usually raw materials such as metals and agricultural products, but a commodity can also be anything widely available in the open market.

2. Software Product Software Product means “Product consisting of a computer program that is offered for sale”. Software product is typically a single application or suite of applications built by a software company to be used by many customers, businesses or consumers. The mass-market notion differs from custom software built for the use of a single customer by consulting firms like IBM Global Services or Accenture. Examples of business software products include the Oracle 10g database by Oracle Corporation, SAP R/3 ERP software by SAP AG, QuickBooks by Intuit, etc. Examples of consumer software products include Microsoft Office by Microsoft, TurboTax by Intuit.

3. Product management When the company wants to provide a product to the market then company should take care of following things. 3.1. Product planning • • • •

Defining new products Gathering market requirements Product Life Cycle considerations Product differentiation

3.2. Product Design Process The design process can be viewed as being made up of a managerial and consumer component. The managerial sub process represents a categorization of the types of managerial decisions made in new product development.

3.2.1. Opportunity Identification The managerial sub process begins with opportunity identification through market definition as a proactive design strategy. Management examines the opportunities, searches for new opportunities, and from these opportunities selects the market that has the great potential to achieve managerial tools. 3.2.2. Consumer Measurement Early in the design process the emphasis should be on gaining an understanding of the consumer, thus the consumer response investigation begins with qualitative consumer measurement. The qualitative measurement puts management in touch with market by providing insight on what motivates consumers, how consumers see the market, how consumer make their purchases, and so on. 3.2.3. Models of Consumers The models, focused around the awareness, perception, preference, segmentation, availability and choice factors described earlier, help management diagnose the market by providing a specific representation of each component in the consumer response process. They identify the design features and products characteristics that make the greatest compact on consumer response and direct the design process to the product or service strategy that is most likely to succeed in the marketplace. Perception identifies the key dimensions that are most relevant to consumer. Preference identifies how consumers use the perceived dimensions to evaluate product. Segmentation determines whether the best strategy is to have one product for all consumers or whether to have a multiplicity of products, each directed at a specific group consumers. 3.2.4. Prediction of Market Behavior Management selects the characteristics for a new product and establishes an advertising and promotional strategy. The perception model predicts how the new product will be perceived by each consumer, how the new product will be compared to existing ones, and determine the probability that any given consumer will actually purchase the new product. 3.2.5. Evaluation

Management weights this prediction as well as production costs, political constraints, technology constraints, material availability, firm image, complementary with product line, and other aspects of new product introduction to arrive at GO/NO GO decision. 3.2.6. Refinement The product is improved based on the diagnostic information from models of the consumers 3.3. Key Points of the Design Process 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

A new product is both a physical product and a psychological positioning. The design process is interactive. Both prediction and understanding are necessary. The level of analysis should be appropriate to the strategic decision. The design process blends managerial judgment with qualitative and quantitative techniques.

A design process may include a series of steps followed by designers. Depending on the product or service, some of these stages may be irrelevant, ignored in real-world situations in order to save time, reduce cost, or because they may be redundant in the situation. Typical stages of the design process include: 3.3.1. Pre-production design o o o o o o

Design brief - a statement of design goals Analysis - analysis of current design goals Research - investigating similar design solutions in the field or related topics Specification - specifying requirements of a design solution for a product (product design specification) or service. Problem solving - conceptualizing and documenting design solutions Presentation - presenting design solutions

3.3.2. Design during production Development - continuation and improvement of a designed solution Testing - testing a designed solution 3.3.3. Post-production design feedback for future designs Implementation - introducing the designed solution into the environment

Evaluation and conclusion - summary of process and results, including constructive criticism and suggestions for future improvements 3.3.4. Redesign - any or all stages in the design process repeated (with corrections made) at any time before, during, or after production. 3.4. Software Product Engineering Taking a software product from concept to reality is a complex and arduous process. Company should assist in this respect by offering customized product design services that best fit for business requirements. 3.4.1. Benefits by providing customized product to market With the experience and expertise in Product Development company should bring a number of advantages. The value propositions include: Reduced time to market: With extensive capabilities and resources at our disposal, company should offer a broad range of product design services at short notice, reducing time to market. Enhanced Innovation: company should handle a large part of the “well proven” product module, which can keep resources focused on enhanced high-end innovations. Product Support: company should provide ongoing product support by understanding business focus and aligning product with customer expectations. Product Quality: product design services apply stringent quality control measures, which ensure high levels of quality in all product designs. Maximum Returns: In bridging the gap between product conceptualization and product development, product design services should offer an unparalleled advantage in maximizing returns. Flexibility: product design services involve low-risk, low management methods, which have the flexibility to scale-up or scale-down the needs of capabilities, capacity and innovation. 3.5. Product Development Product development is the process of designing, creating, and marketing an idea or product.

3.5.1. The Product Development Process Brainstorming and developing a concept is the first step in product development. Once an idea is generated, it is important to determine whether there is a market for the product, what the target market is, and whether the idea will be profitable, as well as whether it is feasible from an engineering and financial standpoint. Once the product is determined to be feasible, the idea or concept is tested on a small sample of customers within the target market to see what their reactions are. In business and engineering, new product development (NPD) is the term used to describe the complete process of bringing a new product or service to market. There are two parallel paths involved in the NPD process: one involves the idea generation, product design, and detail engineering; the other involves market research and marketing analysis. 3.5.2. Elements of the new product development When the NPD process getting started following elements should be considered. Opportunity Identification, Opportunity Analysis, Idea Genesis, Idea Selection, Concept and Technology Development Opportunity Identification: In this element, large or incremental business and technological chances are identified in a more or less structured way. Opportunity Analysis: It is done to translate the identified opportunities into implications for the business and technology specific context of the company. Here extensive efforts may be made to align ideas to target customer groups and do market studies and/or technical trials and research. Idea Genesis: It is described as evolutionary and iterative process progressing from birth to maturation of the opportunity into a tangible idea. Idea selection: Its purpose is to choose whether to pursue an idea by analyzing its potential business value. Concept and Technology Development: During this, the business case is developed based on estimates of the total available market, customer needs, investment requirements, and competition analysis and project uncertainty. 3.6. Product marketing • • • •

Product positioning Promoting the product externally with press, customers, and partners Bringing new products to market Monitoring the competition

4.

Marketing Management

4.1. Marketing Marketing is an ongoing process of planning and executing the marketing mix (Product, Price, Place, Promotion often referred to as the 4 Ps) for products, services or ideas to create exchange between individuals and organizations. Marketing is the process of creating or directing an organization to be successful in selling a product or service that people not only desire, but are willing to buy. Introduction A market-focused, or customer-focused, organization first determines what its potential customer’s desire, and then builds the product or service. Marketing theory and practice is justified in the belief that customers use a product or service because they have a need, or because it provides a perceived benefit. Two major factors of marketing are the recruitment of new customers (acquisition) and the retention and expansion of relationships with existing customers (base management). "Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. 4.2. Concept of Marketing "Marketing" is an instructive business domain that serves to inform and educate target markets about the value and competitive advantage of a company and its products. “Value” is worth derived by the customer from owning and using the product. “Competitive Advantage” is a description that the company or its products are each doing something better than their competition in a way that could benefit the customer. Marketing is focused on the task of conveying pertinent company and product related information to specific customers, and there are a multitude of decisions (strategies) to be made within the marketing domain regarding what information to deliver, how much information to deliver, to whom to deliver, how to deliver, when to deliver, and where to deliver. Once the decisions are made, there are numerous ways (tactics) and processes that could be employed in support of the selected strategies.

Defined marketing as every strategy and decision made in the following areas: • • • • • • • • • • • •

Identifying and quantifying the need in the marketplace Identifying and quantifying the target markets Identifying the optimum cost effective media – online and offline - to reach the target markets Reviewing the priorities of the product offering in your overall product mix ‘matrix’ Identifying and developing the most effective distribution channels, be they wholesaler networks, partnering alliances, franchising, or any number of conduits to the market. Testing different ways of packaging the concepts or products to find their most 'easy-to-sell' form Testing to find the optimum pricing strategies Developing effective promotional strategies and effective advertising, offers, and launch strategies Developing and documenting the sales process Finding the optimum execution of the sales process – through testing of selling scripts, people selection, supporting collateral, skills and attitudinal training, tracking, measuring and refining Ensuring that sales projections reflect realistic production capacities Developing nurture programs to optimize the lifetime value of the customer

The goal of marketing is to build and maintain a preference for a company and its products within the target markets. The goal of any business is to build mutually profitable and sustainable relationships with its customers. While all business domains are responsible for accomplishing this goal, the marketing domain bears a significant share of the responsibility. Within the larger scope of its definition, marketing is performed through the actions of three coordinated disciplines named: “Product Marketing”, “Corporate Marketing”, and “Marketing Communications”. 4.3. Levels of marketing To get success in market the company should take care of the following levels. Strategic marketing: attempts to determine how an organization competes against its competitors in a market place. In particular, it aims at generating a competitive advantage relative to its competitors. Operational marketing: executes marketing functions to attract and keep customers and to maximize the value derived for them, as well as to satisfy the customer with

prompt services and meeting the customer expectations. Operational Marketing includes the determination of the porter's five forces 4.4. Marketing mix Marketing Mix contained 11 elements: product, price, place, promotion, people, process, physical evidence, personalization, participation, Peer-To-Peer, predictive modeling. Those are: Product: The product aspects of marketing deal with the specifications of the actual goods or services, and how it relates to the end-user's needs and wants. The scope of a product generally includes supporting elements such as warranties, guarantees, and support. Pricing: This refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts. The price need not be monetary - it can simply be what is exchanged for the product or services, e.g. time, energy, psychology or attention. Promotion: This includes advertising, sales promotion, publicity, and personal selling, branding and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company. Placement (or distribution): refers to how the product gets to the customer; for example, point of sale placement or retailing. This fourth P has also sometimes been called Place, referring to the channel by which a product or services is sold (e.g. online vs. retail), which geographic region or industry, to which segment (young adults, families, business people), etc. also referring to how the environment in which the product is sold in can affect sales. People: Any person coming into contact with customers can have an impact on overall satisfaction. Whether as part of a supporting service to a product or involved in a total service, people are particularly important because, in the customer's eyes, they are generally inseparable from the total service. As a result of this, they must be appropriately trained, well motivated and the right type of person. Fellow customers are also sometimes referred to under 'people', as they too can affect the customer's service experience, (e.g., at a sporting event). Process: This is the process involved in providing a service and the behavior of people, which can be crucial to customer satisfaction. Physical evidence: Unlike a product, a service cannot be experienced before it is delivered, which makes it intangible. This, therefore, means that potential customers could perceive greater risk when deciding whether to use a service. To reduce the feeling of risk, thus improving the chance for success, it is often vital to offer

potential customers the chance to see what a service would be like. This is done by providing physical evidence, such as case studies, testimonials or demonstrations. Personalization: It is here referred customization of products and services through the use of the Internet. Early examples include Dell on-line and Amazon.com, but this concept is further extended with emerging social media and advanced algorithms. Emerging technologies will continue to push this idea forward. Participation: This is to allow the customer to participate in what the brand should stand for; what should be the product directions and even which ads to run. This concept is laying the foundation for disruptive change through democratization of information. Peer-to-Peer: This refers to customer networks and communities where advocacy happens. P2P is now being referred as Social Computing and is likely to be the most disruptive force in the future of marketing. Predictive modeling: This refers to algorithms that are being successfully applied in marketing problems (both a regression as well as a classification problem). 4.5. Marketing communications Marketing communications breaks down the strategies involved with marketing messages into categories based on the goals of each message. There are distinct stages in converting strangers to customers that govern the communication medium that should be used. Advertising Paid form of public presentation and expressive promotion of ideas Functions and advantages of successful advertising Task of the marketing department made easier Protects and warns customers against false claims and inferior products Continuous reminder Uninterrupted production a possibility Increases goodwill Objectives for maintaining marketing communication Maintain demand for well-known goods Introduce new and unknown goods Increase demand for well-known goods/products/services Requirements of a good advertisement Attract attention (awareness) Stimulate interest Create a desire Bring about action

Steps in an advertising campaign Market research Setting out aims Budgeting Choice of media (television, newspaper, radio) Marketing Public Relations (MPR) Stimulation of demand through press release giving a favorable report to a product Higher degree of credibility Effectively news Boosts enterprise's image Customer focus Many companies today have a customer focus (or customer orientation). This implies that the company focuses its activities and products on consumer demands. Generally there are three ways of doing this: the customer-driven approach, the sense of identifying market changes and the product innovation approach. In the consumer-driven approach, consumer wants are the drivers of all strategic marketing decisions. No strategy is pursued until it passes the test of consumer research. Every aspect of a market offering, including the nature of the product itself, is driven by the needs of potential consumers. The starting point is always the consumer. The rationale for this approach is that there is no point spending R&D funds developing products that people will not buy. History attests to many products that were commercial failures in spite of being technological breakthroughs. A formal approach to this customer-focused marketing is known as SIVA (Solution, Information, Value, Access). This system is basically the four Ps renamed and reworded to provide a customer focus. The SIVA Model provides a demand/customer centric version alternative to the wellknown 4Ps supply side model (product, price, place, promotion) of marketing management. Product → Solution Promotion → Information Price → Value Place → Access The four elements of the SIVA model are: Solution: How appropriate is the solution to the customer's problem/need?

Information: Does the customer know about the solution? If so, how and from whom do they know enough to let them make a buying decision? Value: Does the customer know the value of the transaction, what it will cost, what are the benefits, what might they have to sacrifice, what will be their reward? Access: Where can the customer find the solution? How easily/locally/remotely can they buy it and take delivery? The model focuses heavily on the customer and how they view the transaction. Product focus In a product innovation approach, the company pursues product innovation, and then tries to develop a market for the product. Product innovation drives the process and marketing research is conducted primarily to ensure that a profitable market segment(s) exists for the innovation. When pursuing a product innovation approach, marketers must ensure that they have a varied and multi-tiered approach to product innovation. Many firms, such as research and development focused companies, successfully focus on product innovation. A relatively new form of marketing uses the Internet and is called Internet marketing or more generally e-marketing, affiliate marketing, desktop advertising or online marketing. It typically tries to perfect the segmentation strategy used in traditional marketing. It targets its audience more precisely, and is sometimes called personalized marketing or one-to-one marketing.

5. Marketing Planning 5.1. The marketing planning process In most organizations, "strategic planning" is an annual process, typically covering just the year ahead. Occasionally, a few organizations may look at a practical plan which stretches three or more years ahead. A marketing plan outlines the specific actions intend to carry out to interest potential customers and clients in product and/or service and persuade them to buy the product and/or services we offer. To be most effective, the plan has to be formalized, usually in written form, as a formal `marketing plan'. The essence of the process is that it moves from the general to the specific Marketing planning aims and objectives Behind the corporate objectives, which in themselves offer the main context for the marketing plan, will lay the 'corporate mission'; which in turn provides the context

for these corporate objectives. This `corporate mission' can be thought of as a definition of what the organization is; of what it does: 'Our business is …'. The definition should cover three dimensions: 'customer groups' to be served, 'customer needs' to be served, and 'technologies' to be utilized. Some of the things should be observed in a business: • • • • • • • • •

Who are the customers? What are their key characteristics? What differentiates them from other members of the population? What are their needs and wants? What do they expect the `product' to do? What are their special requirements and perceptions? What do they think of the organization and its products or services? What are their attitudes? What are their buying intentions?

When we are thinking for a product following things should be taking into consideration. 1. Financial data --Facts for this section will come from management accounting, costing and finance sections. 2. Product data --From research and development. 3. Advertising, sales promotion, merchandising data - Information from these departments. Marketing plan should splits into 3 groups. 1. 'Review of the marketing environment'. A study of the organization's markets, customers, competitors and the overall economic, political, cultural and technical environment; covering developing trends, as well as the current situation. 2. 'Review of the detailed marketing activity'. A study of the company's marketing mix; in terms of Product, Price, Place and Promotion, Physical Environment, People, Process. 3. 'Review of the marketing system'. A study of the marketing organization, marketing research systems and the current marketing objectives and strategies. One more aspect of strategy which is often overlooked is that of 'timing'. Exactly when it is the best time for each element of the strategy to be implemented is often critical. Taking right decision at right time will help for a business.

Having completed this crucial stage of the planning process, we need to re-check the feasibility of company objectives and strategies in terms of the sales, costs, profits and so on which these demand in practice. 5.2. Content of the marketing plan 1. Description of the product or service, including special features 2. Marketing budget, including the advertising and promotional plan 3. Description of the business location, including advantages and disadvantages for marketing 4. Pricing strategy 5. SWOT Analysis 6. Financial Forecast 5.3. Detailed plans and programs When we are preparing plans and programs we should consider following things. Clear – They should be clear and should know exactly what is to be done. Quantified - The predicted outcome of each activity should be, as far as possible, quantified; so that its performance can be monitored. Focused - The temptation to proliferate activities beyond the numbers which can be realistically controlled should be avoided. Realistic - They should be achievable. Agreed - Those who are to implement them should be committed to them, and agree that they are achievable. 5.4. Measurement of Progress The final stage of any marketing planning process is to establish targets so that progress can be monitored. Accordingly, it is important to put both quantities and timescales into the marketing objective. Continuous monitoring of performance, against predetermined targets, represents a most important aspect of this. However, perhaps even more important is the enforced discipline of a regular formal review. Again, as with forecasts, in many cases the best (most realistic) planning cycle will revolve around a quarterly review.

5.5. Performance analysis The most important elements of marketing performance, which are normally tracked, are:

Sales analysis Company should review the sales of the company and then investigating detailed problems, then investigates the individual elements (individual products, sales territories, customers and so on) which are failing to meet targets. Expense analysis The key ratio to watch in this area is usually the `marketing expense to sales ratio; although this may be broken down into other elements (advertising to sales, sales administration to sales, and so on). Financial Analysis The `bottom line' of marketing activities should at least in theory, be the net profit (for all except non-profit organizations, where the comparable emphasis may be on remaining within budgeted costs). There are a number of separate performance figures and key ratios which need to be tracked: • • •

gross contribution<>net profit gross profit<>return on investment net contribution<>profit on sales

The above performance analyses concentrate on the quantitative measures which are directly related to short-term performance. But there are a number of indirect measures, essentially tracking customer attitudes, which can also indicate the organization's performance in terms of its longer-term marketing strengths and may accordingly be even more important indicators. Some useful measures are: • • •

market research - including customer panels (which are used to track changes over time) lost business - the projects which were given before and taken back customer complaints - how many customers complain about the products or services

So when the organization goes with a certain marketing plan then it would be better to check out the profits and the performance of the company as well as employees.

6. Software Product Marketing In today’s competitive software markets it is of utmost interest to have winning products. The success of any IT product depends on competent and effective product managers. IT product management includes product requirements, release definition, product release lifecycles, creating an effective multifunctional product introduction team and – above all – assuring a winning business case. Software Product Marketing specializes in website design, internet marketing, graphic design, and advertising strategies. 6.1. Strategies to improve software product marketing 6.1.1. Expert websites Website is the most important piece of marketing that have to develop. It should be distinctive should reflect professional image. Website should be like to build brand and create a customer-focused website - one that keeps visitors coming back! And it should be simple and fully functional ecommerce site. 6.1.2. Web Promotion Put business on the fast track using web promotion products and services. 6.2. Online Software Product Marketing Web Developer that sells software online, here are the basic software marketing methods that will help to boost the sales. 6.2.1. Basic online software marketing techniques 6.2.1. A. Continuous Search Website Optimization Maintaining a high ranking in the most important search websites is a never ending struggle, as we need to follow certain rules and continuously update and optimize the website. Focus on: Improving link popularity Adding fresh content Monitoring website results Spending time in improving the design and the usability of website. 6.2.1. B. Submit shareware to software download sites and directories

Promote software by submitting it to as many download sites and directories as possible. Create a good PAD (Portable Application Description) file, as this will ease the entire submission process and webmasters will appreciate it, too. Pay attention to where we get from these sites and invest time in those who really bring us customers. One of the main advantages of submitting software to download sites is obtaining more back-links and increased link popularity, which enhance your website's page ranking. It is one of the most important software marketing techniques. 6.2.1. C. Affiliates marketing There is a vast network of affiliates on the internet. Affiliates are people who will promote and sell software products from their websites, in return of a small commission for every sale. So if we choose those who have websites that have been specially designed to sell software products then our sales will be increased. 6.2.1. D. Pay per Click campaigns Important search place ads near search results in return of a small amount. It is called pay per click advertising. The idea behind this marketing technique is to bid for relevant "keywords" that bring pertinent results related to the product you're selling, and place your advertisement on the top of the page. The most important players on this market are Google AdWords and Yahoo!Search. 6.2.1. E. Write newsletters and press releases A newsletter is an easy way to stay in touch with your clients, prospects and affiliates. The success of an e-mail newsletter distribution system depends on our database: we need to keep it up to date and accurate. Always should ask permission to stay in touch with clients and affiliates. Let them know what to expect from our newsletters regarding content and frequency and respect the standards that we have established. Keep focused on the substance of the email - make it original and appealing. We can also take advantage of many websites that offer public relation services including free publishing of press releases. 6.2.1. F. Get involved in online forums and blogs It is basically free publicity. Invest time in subscribing to forums or discussions groups that deal with software related themes. Many people visit forums and blogs in search of information. A blog post that deals with the theme under discussion, contains relevant information and is presented in a professional way could be of real interest to the participants. Give the website's address, the product's name and possibly file location. 6.2.1. G. Write and submit articles

There are many e-zines and online publications on the internet where we can publish software related articles. This is an easy way to get free exposure and consolidate the image as a professional in domain. A good article has to look professional. The golden rule is to come up with a catchy headline and pay special attention to the content. Avoid duplicating information found on the internet. Article must be simple, meaningful and original. Keep a professional tone and avoid self-promotion. Sign articles; add contact information and a copyright note at the end of the editorial. Also include a line with website's address for those who might be interested in the subject that we presented and would like to find out more about work. 6.2.1. H. Social Media Online communities may help us to increase brand awareness, traffic, gain good back links. We can start by creating bookmarklets to insert into articles, whitepapers, press releases and any other page that visitors might catalog as useful information. Visitors will have the chance to recommend, telling others about us and in the end this will lead to increasing popularity. 6.3. Steps to improve software product marketing Deliver what market wants and needs by capturing the voice of the market on an ongoing, iterative basis, evaluating and scoring ideas, and translating them into actionable plans. Improve productivity and time-to-market by better aligning resources and budgets with plan of record and improving collaboration by having all information in a single system of record.

6.3.1. Portfolio Management: Align Strategies, Plans, Requirements and Resources The Accept Portfolio Management module improves visibility and control throughout the innovation process, empowering to manage R&D investments more effectively. Powerful market-driven strategy planning and analytics help ensure maximum portfolio value and strategic alignment. With Accept Portfolio Management, we can: Capture strategic goals and objectives 1. Maximize R&D investments by aligning strategies, products, and resources with the needs of the market 2. Balance product investments between short-term objectives and long-term growth 3. Model product offerings and supporting market, technology and product roadmaps 4. Monitor real-time portfolio performance and attractiveness to strategy and plan 5. Gain true understanding of how company and products will differentiate from the competition 6.3.2. Product Development

Create detailed product plans that ensure top-down and bottom-up alignment from strategy through product requirements. Manage requirements and roadmaps in the context of customers, markets, and competitors. Visually evaluate alternate plans based on comprehensive market and product data – not inference or intuition – and adjust product investments to maximize value and minimize risk Easily produce market and product requirements documents Manage project schedules, resources, budgets, and risks through product planning, development, and launch. 6.3.3. Ideation Engage everyone Prioritize with certainty Transform ideas into winning products

6.4. Foundation The Accept Innovation Foundation links the capabilities of Accepts three modules – Ideation, Portfolio Management, and Product Development. It provides three core capabilities that improve team and individual productivity and deliver visibility for all participants. • • •

Collaboration Business Intelligence Requirements Management

Now everyone from executives to the entire product team can benefit from a single system of record that captures all market, competitive, and requirements data in one place, giving you visibility at every stage of the innovation process. 6.4.1. Collaboration Break down organizational silos, so you can mobilize resources around innovation and foster collaboration and knowledge sharing. You’re also empowered to proactively collaborate beyond the enterprise with customers, partners, and suppliers. Build a common, readily-accessible knowledge base Foster collaboration within and across product teams Share critical market and product data

Receive real-time alerts and notifications Keep abreast of plan changes and cross-departmental product impacts 6.4.2. Business Intelligence Accept enables you to leverage analytics so you can evaluate alternatives, optimize plans, and prioritize investments. • • •

Generate reports to communicate priorities and status View real-time red-light/yellow-light/green-light status updates at any level of detail Create real-time “living” Product Requirements and Market Requirements documents that provide up-to-date information to all key stakeholders

6.4.3. Requirements Management • • • •

Create a single, current repository of all relevant customer, market, competitor, cost, and resource data Rank requirement, product, and portfolio priorities based on strategic goals, customer commitments, costs, resources, and benefits Distribute task and status ownership while centralizing data and visibility Ensure you’re investing resources and budget in the right product capabilities

6.5. Software Product Marketing At Non-Domestic Areas 6.5.1. Various benefits of Non-Domestic sales There are many benefits by going into non-domestic sales Increasing sales Non-domestic sales is one way of increasing sales potential; it expands the "pie" that can earn money from, otherwise we will stuck trying to make money only out of the local market. While the local market may represent enough sales potential for smaller firms, for medium and larger companies the local market is just too small and the only way to expand sales is to go for non-domestic sales. It should be said, however, if we are not yet selling regionally and nationally, then we should first aiming at expanding market share within the local market. Once we saturated the national market, then we look beyond the borders of country. It has been said that there are no sales barrier that automatically begins where border ends. Increased sales also impact upon profitability (although not always positively), productivity by lowering unit costs, and may increase firm's perceived size and stature, thereby affecting its competitive position compared with other similar-sized organizations.

Increasing profits Companies generally strive to make profits and the bigger the profits the better. In many instances, non-domestic sales can contribute to increased profits because the average orders from international customers are often larger than domestic buyers. Some products - especially those that are unique or very innovative in nature may also command greater profit margins abroad than in the local market. Reducing risk and balancing growth It is risky being bound to the domestic market alone. Non-domestic sales to a variety of diverse foreign markets can help reduce the risk that the company may be exposed to because of fluctuations in local (and foreign) business cycles. At any one time, the UK, Australia and Germany will be enjoying different growth rates. Economies of scale A non-domestic sale is an excellent way to enjoy pure economies of scale with products that are more "global" in scope and have a wider range of acceptance around the world (in other words, they can be used in other parts of the world without much adaptation). This is in contrast to products that must be adapted for each market, which is expensive and time consuming and requires more of an investment. The newer the product, the wider range of acceptance in the world, especially to younger "customers," often referred to as the "global consumer". Overcoming low growth in the home market It is not uncommon for a recession in the local market to act as a spur for companies to enter non-domestic markets that may offer greater opportunities for sales. While this may have the benefit of offering ongoing sales potential for the firm in question, the danger with this approach is that when the local market improves, these companies abandon their non-domestic markets to focus on the now buoyant local market. Improving efficiency and product quality The global market is a highly competitive place and by participating in this marketplace, we need to become equally efficient and quality conscious. Untapped markets A company may have a very unique product that is not yet available elsewhere in the world. In this instance, these untapped markets are likely to drive the firm's nondomestic activities. Other firms may want to take advantage of high-volume purchases in large markets overseas, such as in the US, Europe and Asia.

6.5.2. The various drawbacks of non-domestic sales Of course, there are also potential pitfalls in non-domestic sales. They include the following: Management may need to devote a considerable amount of time to the start-up procedures and decisions involved in non-domestic sales Key personnel or other critical resources may have to be diverted from domestic responsibilities to help with the company's non-domestic activities Additional facilities may be needed to cope with increased sales through nondomestics Catalogues, brochures and other sales promotion material, as well as packaging and labeling, may need to be translated into a foreign language Credit terms may need to be extended because of competition, local custom or transit time Non-domestic sales, although rewarding, is generally an expensive activity and will require additional financial resources

7. Strategies for Maintaining and Improving Quality Delivering high quality software is a stated goal of many development teams and it is a very admirable goal. To reach this goal we need to decide what "high quality" really means and we need to have some clue about how to achieve it? 7.1. Definitions of Quality Quality is often defined as the level of conformance to agreed requirements. The requirements of the developers working on a piece of software are different from the requirements of those that use it. These two perspectives provide a useful approach to discussing quality. Users are concerned with "external quality" and developers are concerned with "internal quality". 7.1.1. External Quality We can define external quality as the level a software product achieves for the following factors: • • • •

Functional correctness, completeness and reliability - how often does it produce the right results under normal circumstances? Speed - does it produce results fast enough under normal circumstances? Robustness - does it handle abnormal circumstances sensibly? User friendliness - is it easy and intuitive to use?

7.1.2. Internal Quality

Developers are as interested in the quality of the design and the quality of the source code as they are in the external quality of the software. Just as with external quality, the relative importance of the different internal quality factors of a piece of software depends on the type of software and kind of developers involved. Therefore, we can define the internal quality of a piece of software as its level of and relative balance between the following factors: • • • • •

Elegance - is the design and code as simple as possible but not so simple that it does not do the job well? Efficiency - does it avoid unnecessary overuse of resources? Comprehensibility - is the design and code easy to understand? Flexibility - can it be easily adapted to do things differently? Compliance - does it conform to documented, agreed standards, patterns and best practices?

Initially a piece of software with low internal quality may exhibit high external quality. However, unless the internal quality is improved, the external quality is bound to eventually suffer as developers try to fix bugs and add new features over time. This is where restructuring becomes truly useful. Restructuring is about making improvements to the internal structure of a piece of code without changing its external behavior. 7.2. Strategies for improving internal and external quality Some of the reasons for this are obvious: • • •

The later a problem is identified then the higher the likelihood that work based on it has been added. That work will need to be rechecked and maybe redone. The later a problem is identified, the more groups of people involved and the more administrative process required to have it fixed. The longer the distance between introducing a defect and identifying it, the higher the level of frustration, irritation and resistance of developers. They have to go back to designs and source code they thought was finished long ago and rework it.

The following are some proven strategies for the early detection of problems in internal and external quality. Strategy 1: Use a highly iterative process. A highly iterative development process breaks down the deliverables of a software project into small pieces and applies the development process to each of those small pieces. A highly iterative process means that the analysis, design and coding of each piece reaches testing much quicker.

Strategy 2: Use collaborative analysis and design sessions For collaborative design sessions to be more productive than individuals working separately requires discipline and management. Facilitating team design sessions and knowing when to work together and when to work separately is a highly valuable skill in a development team lead or chief programmer. Strategy 3: Use design and code inspections/reviews/walkthroughs The use of peer reviews, walkthroughs or inspections can significantly shorten the distance between the introduction of defects and their detection. When done well, inspections find more defects than testing and also find different defects than testing. In contrast to testing, inspections improve the internal quality of software by examining the analysis, design and source code. Strategy 5: Communicate design clearly at all levels of abstraction Communicate design clearly at all levels of abstraction using the most appropriate means of communication: text, lists, tables and/or pictures. Miscommunication and misunderstanding are behind many significant defect in the analysis and design of software components and systems. Reducing these problems can make a significant improvement in a systems internal and external quality.

8. The Product Life Cycle A new product progresses through a sequence of stages from introduction to growth, maturity, and decline. This sequence is known as the product life cycle and is associated with changes in the marketing situation, thus impacting the marketing strategy and the marketing mix. The product revenue and profits can be plotted as a function of the life-cycle stages as shown in the graph below: Product Life Cycle Diagram

Introduction Stage In the introduction stage, the firm seeks to build product awareness and develop a market for the product. The impact on the marketing mix is as follows: Product branding and quality level is established, and intellectual property protection such as patents and trademarks are obtained. Pricing may be low penetration pricing to build market share rapidly, or high skim pricing to recover development costs. Distribution is selective until consumers show acceptance of the product. Promotion is aimed at innovators and early adopters. Marketing communications seeks to build product awareness and to educate potential consumers about the product. Growth Stage In the growth stage, the firm seeks to build brand preference and increase market share. Product quality is maintained and additional features and support services may be added. Pricing is maintained as the firm enjoys increasing demand with little competition. Distribution channels are added as demand increases and customers accept the product. Promotion is aimed at a broader audience. Maturity Stage At maturity, the strong growth in sales diminishes. Competition may appear with similar products. The primary objective at this point is to defend market share while maximizing profit. Product features may be enhanced to differentiate the product from that of competitors. Pricing may be lower because of the new competition. Distribution becomes more intensive and incentives may be offered to encourage preference over competing products.

Promotion emphasizes product differentiation. Decline Stage As sales decline, the firm has several options: Maintain the product, possibly rejuvenating it by adding new features and finding new uses. Harvest the product - reduce costs and continue to offer it, possibly to a loyal niche segment. Discontinue the product, liquidating remaining inventory or selling it to another firm that is willing to continue the product. The marketing mix decisions in the decline phase will depend on the selected strategy. For example, the product may be changed if it is being rejuvenated, or left unchanged if it is being harvested or liquidated. The price may be maintained if the product is harvested, or reduced drastically if liquidated.