The Most Important Sources of Idea Generation Pharmaceutical Brand Management are:
1) Customers:
All marketing activities focus attention on customer needs & wants. It has been observed in various research study that customer often n gives very good suggestion for such information can be obtained with the help of regular customer service of other techniques like focused group discussion & through interviews.
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2) Distribution Channel Members:
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Distribution personnel who are in touch with customer often give excellent suggestion for new product development. Good marketing companies generally keep regular contact leading stockiest or dealers not only defined various information from their existing but also find information about new products or modification made by competitors. The dealer conference can also bring about such new idea.
3) Competitors:
All marketing companies keep a close watch on development carried out by competitors & these are collected by their own sales force, & dealers. A company should monitor such development activities of competitors; accordingly build their new product development activity.
4) Own Sales Force:
The company’s sales force who is actually working but have failed in selling, but are in touch with dealers & consumers know about shortcomings of their products & they can often give good ideas for new product development.
5) Marketing Research and Advertising Agencies:
Advertising agencies/dealers can often suggest new ideas to the management as these agencies are involved in studying consumer & market behavior, lifestyle changes.
6) Suppliers & Vendors:
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New product ideas can be obtained from suppliers or vendors who are dealing with customers. They may suggest certain improvement in quality or growing for new products with the help of raw materials.
7) Company Management:
Many times owners saved us and members of management have given brilliant ideas for product development & these ideas should be carefully studied.
8) Scientist & Consultant:
New innovative ideas have being developed through basic & industrial research centers. The pharmacy industry has been greatly helped by scientific programmers’ carried out in various research laboratories.
i. Idea Scanning:
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In idea generation the objective is to create number of new ideas. The major objective of the idea scanning is to reduce number of ideas by retaining goods 7 relevant ideas. The new products short listed after screening could need consider prices, development time, manufacturing cost, & rate of return on investment. The consumer welfare should be kept in mind in making choice of product.
ii. Concept Development and Testing:
For the ideas which survive in second stage of product development i.e. screening stage firm used concept testing. Getting reaction from customers on how well new ideas fit with their needs. Concept testing uses market research. It is important to distinguish between product idea & services & as important to specialty chemicals, restaurants and engineering products.
iii. Business Analysis:
Once the product concept has been developed which would be acceptable in market to satisfy needs & wants of the customers next stage is business analysis. The company can analyze its external & internal environment Analysis of internal environment included analysis of its own strength & weakness, while analysis of the opportunities & threats.
Company always try to watch its strength with opportunities try to reduce its weakness & threats. The company will asses future sales, cost, profit. Total cost of production, sales, distribution cost, marketing cost, product development & R&D cost, allocation of overheads are decided after, consultation with all functional depts. Involved in developing, designing, production, sale, marketing, purchase & finance departments.
iv. Market Strategy Development:
The market strategy will include target market selection, market size, location of major markets & sub – markets, demographic & consumer characteristics. Sales and profit at the introduction stage & growth stage.
The marketing strategy will also comprise, pricing strategy, distribution strategy. Advertisement & sales promotion strategy. The product positioning brand decisions are also to be taken into consideration.
v. Market Testing:
Once a developed new product satisfies, all functions performance & overall product style & product & features, the product is taken for actual field trial called ,market testing, Market testing of the product is done before commercial launching of the product.
This is helpful to know the consumers reaction, feedback & product performance, Market testing gives useful information regarding product quality, style & features, brand name, packaging as well as distributors, price & type of promotional mix required.
vi. Commercial Launching of New Products:
In this following factors are important:-
1. Time to Launch
2. Place to Launch
3. Segment of target market of Launch
The new product should be introduced at the right time so that it could be sold to the right segment or the target market where, it is needed the most. FMCG can be introduced when the consumer demand is high, seasonal product on consumer durable attempts should be introduced when season is at the peak & not in the off season. The company will have to decide where to go for successful launching of the product.
The safe areas are where the demand is high or volumes are high due to population disposable income of target market. The Company will have to decide area, state region, national market or international market based on companies’ strength of resources and profitability, of success of new product.
Company should also consider supply demand situation, population, consumer characteristic, market characteristic, consumer situation & finally government & legal consideration.