REFLECTION - LEARNING LAUNCH

Challenge & Selection

I work as a researcher in a government organization. Apart from undertaking industrial research &  development, I am engaged in supporting Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) to develop new  products as well as improve their existing product range in order to meet customers’ expectations and  access new markets. The challenge here is to ensure that the new or improved products actually meets  the qualities or specifications that the customers really want, and not what we think the customers  might want.

Supporting SMEs in the product development cycle entails a set of activities.  The process usually starts  with inviting the organizations to express interest in the product development/improvement program.  The organizations are asked to state the products that they would like to improve and the market that  they are targeting. Once a list of interested organizations is received, a first meeting with the  organization is set up. The main agenda is really to understand the company’s products, what they  would like to improve on, available resources and the target market that they hope to concur with the  improved product. This is followed by a market survey to give us a picture of what similar products are  already in the market, including what the market really wants. A series of brain storming workshops that  lead to the development of new product ideas are held subsequently. The ideas are then developed into  concepts, which are later developed into prototypes for market testing and later on introduced to the  market. At every stage of the product development / improvement process, each idea is evaluated  before being taken to the next stage of development.

For this challenge, I have selected the learning launch because we used this approach to test the new  product prototypes in the market, as well as gather information from the potential customers. The  gathered information is used to make improvements on the product.

Juan Monroy and Daren Carrieri in their article “The learning Launch: How to Grow Your Business  with the Scientific Method” published on 20th June 2016 on the Darden School of Business’ website,  describe a learning launch as a “carefully designed experiment or prototype designed to test the key  underlying value-generation assumptions of a potential new-growth initiative. A learning launch is a  learning experiment conducted quickly and inexpensively to gather market driven data to determine  whether  a growth idea has enough merit to warrant detailed investigation with the commitment of  further time, people and resources”. According to the article “Design Thinking for Growth: A Toolkit for  Managers” by Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie, published in Rotman Magazine Fall 2011 (pp.17 – 21),  “the learning launch is a tool that moves the developed prototypes into the market”. The authors  describe the learning launch tool as a means of detecting data that disapproves the hypothesis.

In most cases, once a new product prototype is developed, we often tend to think that we have  incorporated all the customer requirements in the new/improved product. But this will have to be put  to test by actually taking the prototypes to the market and asking customers for their feedback.

Application

In our case, we applied the learning launch tool during a small local trade exhibitions. After a vigorous  process of product improvement/development described above, we invited the SMEs that I had worked

with, to take part in an exhibition/fair. Potential customers and experts in the relevant field were also  invited. The SMEs were required to show case their new/improved products alongside their “normal  products”. In order to collect information on the customer feedback, we came up with a questionnaire  that had some questions regarding the new / improved products.  The questionnaire had questions such  as, what do you like about this product? How can it be improved to meet your requirements? Etc. The  questionnaires were distributed amongst my colleagues who had conversations with the potential  customers invited to the fair. At the end of the exhibition, we had gathered significant data that would  help us and the SMEs to improve on the new products.

Insight

The collected data gave us a great insight about the actual customer requirements rather than what we  initially thought the customers wanted. This information was very useful in improving the “new  products” which had been showcased. This activity also gave some confidence to the SMEs in that it  created an opportunity for a first contact with potentially new customers. The learning launch also led  to the generation of interest from some customers who already expressed interest to purchase the  products as soon as they were launched in the market. The SMEs were also able to exchange ideas  amongst themselves and create new business networks.

Approach

The learning launch in my opinion was very successful. I would use the tool again in the future. In order  to gain access to more potential customers, I would perhaps do the learning launch during a bigger trade  exhibition/fair. I would also improve the structuring of the data collection questionnaire, in order to get  quantitative data. This would perhaps make data analysis much easier!

