New products and services are the foundation of any long term successful strategy in a business. But when we think about new products and services, we often think only about those groundbreaking products that have changed the world in some way. We often forget that most of the new successful product introductions are much smaller in scale, leverage from the strengths of the organization and its connection with it's customer base.

This introductory course will lay the framework for the many different types of new products and services that we can offer our customers. Follow-on courses will develop the details of how to define, develop and launch highly successful new products and services.

In this course we will cover:

• PRODUCT FLOP OR SUCCESS?

  • Learning from failure is a key ingredient of success. This lecture will examine a few of the big product failures in the past and examine what caused those.

• TYPES OF NEW PRODUCTS

  • We all think about that earth shattering, revolutionary brand new product that rocks the world. But most successful products are extensions of our current product line or improvements on a current product. This course will review the basic types of new products and how they can be great business investments.

• SERVICES AS PRODUCTS

  • The conventional method of thinking about new products is the development and launch of a new physical item... something we can see and feel and hold. We often forget that there are huge opportunities in launching "New Services" as a stand alone item or in conjunction with a new physical product. We will review the different classes of services and how they relate to overall business success.

This "PLAIN AND SIMPLE" series strives to describe all course content in a simple and easy to understand manner, using many practical examples throughout. It is targeted at those learners who have minimal familiarity with the subject matter.

The content of the series is based on the author's 35 plus years experience in New Product Development from Concept to Product End of Life. The author started out his career as a product development engineer and progressed to technical marketing, business development and then finally to senior management as a VP and then President of a high tech firm. Following his retirement the author was invited to teach New Product Development to MBA students at the University of Washington in Seattle and to EMBA and Healthcare students at the University of New Haven in Connecticut.