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Part Two
Design
Interactive design
Interactive design can
shorten time to market
production of the product or service and its introduction to the market. Merging the design
of products/services and the processes which create them is sometimes called interactive
design. Its benefits come from the reduction in the elapsed time for the whole design activity,
from concept through to market introduction. This is often called the time to market (TTM).
The argument in favour of reducing time to market is that doing so gives increased competitive
advantage. For example, if it takes a company five years to develop a product from
concept to market, with a given set of resources, it can introduce a new product only once every
five years. If its rival can develop products in three years, it can introduce its new product,
together with its (presumably) improved performance, once every three years. This means
that the rival company does not have to make such radical improvements in performance each
time it introduces a new product, because it is introducing its new products more frequently.
In other words, shorter TTM means that companies get more opportunities to improve the
performance of their products or services.
If the development process takes longer than expected (or even worse, longer than competitors’)
two effects are likely to show. The first is that the costs of development will increase.
Having to use development resources, such as designers, technicians, subcontractors, and
so on, for a longer development period usually increases the costs of development. Perhaps
more seriously, the late introduction of the product or service will delay the revenue from
its sale (and possibly reduce the total revenue substantially if competitors have already got
to the market with their own products or services). The net effect of this could be not only
a considerable reduction in sales but also reduced profitability – an outcome which could
considerably extend the time before the company breaks even on its investment in the new
product or service. This is illustrated in Figure 5.9.
A number of factors have been suggested which can significantly reduce time to market
for a product or service, including the following:
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simultaneous development of the various stages in the overall process;
an early resolution of design conflict and uncertainty;
an organizational structure which reflects the development project.
Figure 5.9 Delay in the time to market of new products and services not only reduces and delays revenues, it also
increases the costs of development. The combination of both these effects usually delays the financial break-even
point far more than the delay in the time to market