New Product Development - Pizzeria - Research Paper Example

New Product Development: Pizzeria By: Professor: Class: University: City: State: Date of submission: Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Executive Summary 3 The needs of Customers   3 The New Product 4 Interview Guide for Targeted Consumers 5 Data on Pizza Consumption 5 Insights from the Research 6 Reflection on Results and Identifying the Unmet Consumer Needs 6 Concept Generation and Development  7 Core Value Proposition of Pizzeria 8 The Target Market 9 New Product Concepts 9 Concept Evaluation and Selection 10 Questionnaire 10 Results 11 The ‘Best’ Concept 12 References 13 New Product Development: Pizzeria Executive Summary Food affects people in various aspects including physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being which is reflected in various nutritional approaches. With increasing concern on the quality of food that people consume and increasing knowledge among the consumers to adjust their diet, consumers are increasingly expecting quality, safety, and diversity of people. There is dynamic variability in the perception of consumers on quality. As a result, businesses are focusing on the product, processes, and management of issues associated with fairness in trade, origin of the product, and environmental consciousness. In places like UK, there has been increasing demand for pizza with many businesses investing in the industry. However, the eating habits and consumption behavior are increasingly changing which pose serious threat to business. It is from such background that Dominos aims to develop a new product, pizzeria, to meet the needs of the customers within the market. The needs of Customers   Currently, there is increased demand for health promoting food. Globally, health and diet are becoming the major priorities among the consumers as their knowledge increase due to the ability of the scientists in understanding the connection between the physiological functions, nutrients, and food. Such trend, in the recent years, has led to increased demand for accessible, accurate, and detailed information on the food labels, which covers the nutritional contents, claims, and ingredients. More importantly, the safety measures such dates, storage, and cooking instructions are critical for consideration (Kissmetrics, 2016). The knowledge on nutritional science and associated understanding and adoption within the practice can positively improve the wellbeing of the consumers and extension of their concern (Brown & Henkel, 2007, 188). Understanding the needs of the consumers for affordable and quality food, impact on health, attitude, and knowledge of the consumers is of high significance while making decision on food. Currently, the food industry professionals are realizing that consumers are amending their diets to improve their health; hence, food manufacturers need to keep in mind with the current issues and technologies that shape the landscape of the wellness market. The New Product In the UK, the demand for pizza products have been on the rise, as most producers do not have products that meet specified needs of the customers. The paper will focus on new product for Domino Pizza, which is known globally. Through the new product, Pizzeria, the business will have the opportunity to explore the UK markets. Moreover, pizzeria will deliver customer value proposition, ensure high quality level, and efficient pricing. Domino needs the product to dominate the market; as a result, it will provide the best value, taste pizza, and use ingredients of high quality (Queensland Government, 2016). The customers that require great tasting pizza will experience greatest level of satisfaction. To ensure high convenience and customer focused services, Domino will deliver the product to the customers with costs charged based on locations. Pizzeria will offer fair and responsible profit enough to ensure healthy operation of the business and sustainable competition. The product will be delicious that nearly all the customers will enjoy due to its fresh ingredients, right toppings, delicious tastes, and proper cooking. Interview Guide for Targeted Consumers The target market for most pizza businesses are the families with kids who need to go out and eat. In some cases, businesses target people who desire comfort and family oriented environment for the dine-in pizza. To ensure the success of the business, the interview questions will focus on the need of offering delivery services for pizza or the take-out approach. Another focus will be on the dual income families that turns into the convenience of home food delivery with greater frequency considering that cooking after the work might not appealing to some people. While determining the prices of the product, the business will focus on determining the prices used by the competitors and carry out market survey to establish the level of comfort of customers with such prices. In addition, the consumers will determine the shape and ingredients used in producing customized pizza. Data on Pizza Consumption The consumption of pizza in UK has been on the rise with the younger consumers driving the consumption away-from-home pizza purchase. In UK, about two-thirds (65%) of the consumers aged 18-34 years against the 52% aged 35 and above years eat pizza for consumption in restaurant. The popularity of pizza at the retail outlets suggests the opportunity for the restaurant operators. Various businesses are offering branded pizza within the supermarkets and other retail outlets to build their recognition beyond the local markets. There have also been adequate efforts to boost positioning among the loyal customers to ensure convenience (Tristano, 2014). In addition, 43% of the UK consumers like their restaurant brands to offer chilled pizza at the retail while 35% need frozen pizza. For the dine-in and take always, the consumers often indicate interest in variety and flexibility when it comes to choosing pizza. More than half of the consumers as restaurants offering pizza by slice (49% of men and 62% of women) while a third of people stand for more portable pizzas which are handheld with snacks. However, most consumers (55%) prefer making their pizzas. Insights from the Research The key to maintain the success of relevant product within the current marketplace is achieving the balance between tradition and innovation. Based on the research from the consumers, no product has been able to better illustrate such except in pizza, which makes it important to be keen while offering products to the market. Pizzeria offers the consumers various benefits including the benefits of convenience, customization, and portability. To maintain the strength, the operators need to adapt at both the food service and retail sectors (Irudayaraj & Reh, 2008, 162). From various research, consumers eat pizza on an average of 3.4 times in a month with them adapting to the increased consumer consumption patterns. Besides the traditional pizza formats, the presence of the product within the retail sector has been growing and the industry continue to emerge with the fast-casual pizza segment. The consumers are setting the new quality and expectation standards. The fast-casual pizza is performing well since it matches the needs of the consumers in terms of quality, freshness, and ability to choose from various ingredients. Reflection on Results and Identifying the Unmet Consumer Needs From the analysis, the consumers are responsible for shaping the market trend. New products might have challenges while trying to meet the needs of the customers, which are ever changing. Therefore, pizzeria would have to strengthen its quality perception through promotion of freshness and customization of opportunities to ensure that it stays competitive within the market. In addition, there is need to offer the guests wide range of toppings, crusts, and various options emphasizing on the variety. The demand for some elements of pizza has been on the rise including thin crust, gluten-free varieties, jalapeño peppers, and Alfredo sauce (Ueno, 2014, 72). The current gap in the pizza industry is production of meat-free products. With ongoing increment in consumer knowledge on health issues, it is important that pizzeria focus on narrowing such gap and invest in technology that ensure customers receive their ordered products and services on time. Concept Generation and Development  Globally, there are numerous opportunities for satisfying the unmet needs of the customers through creation of new products and services. Nonetheless, the major challenge is determining the product of the service will assist in the businesses in meeting their objectives since the product chosen by the business needs to be able to meet the overall aims of the business. In addition, it needs earn the required profit by the business, meet the business’ strategic positioning objectives, and conform to the needed operational requirements within the business. Therefore, a good product is never visible which means that businesses have to go through adequate research in determining the new product idea before commencing to mass-produce the product with an aim of reducing the product failures. The process involves four main stages including idea generation, screening, evaluation, product development, and commercialization of the product (Ashman, 2013, 127). Various research indicate that the market is full of opportunities, ideas, and concepts that are developable into new products and services. In this case, opportunities represent identifiable technological gaps that businesses could exploit to acquire their desired competitive advantage or meeting some of the unmet needs of the customers. The idea is the perception of the new product, which assist the businesses in solving the needs within the existing market. The product generation and development concept refers to the description of various technological needs and the benefits of customers associated with the conceived idea. Within the market, there are triggers, which are the factors within the market promoting the creation of the new ideas (Wranx, 2015). The major trigger to the new product idea is the continuous advancement in technology that creates new opportunity for improving the existing products. Increased competition is another trigger that focuses on improving the product to remain relevant to the market. However, it is important that the business choose only the ideas that fit within its overall strategies and objectives. Core Value Proposition of Pizzeria The major proposition that the product presents to the market is food quality. With the consumers expecting the steady increase in the quality and diversity of the food, pizzeria aims to ensure product of quality food and maintain such with time. The concept of quality has changed over the past years and continues to do so. The business will determine the value of the food through total diet since classification of food into either good or bad might foster unhealthy food eating habits. Therefore, the business will introduce quality assurance policies and procedures applicable to the procurement of the pizza. Food safety is another proposition for the product. People live in a highly technical society influenced through technical developments and concepts (Tokuşoğlu & Swanson, 2014, 5). The major goals of many businesses are to ensure adequate measures for food safety and control food-borne diseases. To ensure high level of protection of human health and interest of the consumers in relation to food, the business will ensure that its basic tasks towards the integrated approach that covers various sectors of the food chain such as the feed production, primary production, food processing, and during sales. The Target Market Based on the current concern on the eating behavior and increased demand to reduce consumption of food that cause obesity and other complications, pizzeria targets the customers that love pizza and are health sensitive. UK market is very complex due to its legal structure governing the food industry. The secondary targets of pizzeria are those who need service delivery. This will offer reliable services to the customers although there is overlap in the segments. Many people within the middle-class in UK offer the market. Most of the segments are families. Based on the analysis, market segmentation of pizzeria is simple and easy to understand. On geographic segmentation, the product will serve various locations. Other targets are the young generation, high income, and business classes that spend much on pizza (Franchise Business, 2013). Pizzeria also target out for dinner families and teenagers going to school. Considering the high spending among the college freshmen, it is leaky that they spend much on non-essential products including pizza. The business will offer meat free pizza with salad and pasta especially those who do not use meat; thus, the customers tend to enjoy food of high quality to Dominos. New Product Concepts The new product development (NPD) commences with generation of idea. Strategic management of the project involves selling the idea; as a result, Domino created the new idea of pizzeria to capture the new market where people have no access to healthy food or to enable them have safe food (Rossell, 2001, 116). The new product needs to define the overall character and mission of the organization. The second step involves idea screening. In this stage, the business needs to consider its technology, marketing capability, and if the new product fits within the company’s vision and strategic objectives. Concept development and testing is the third stage and involves formal evaluation of the product concept by the consumers, which is mostly undertaken through marketing research (Mills & Brooke, 2012, 207). Therefore, the business needs to build its self-concept, which is a distinctive competence of the business. In the concept testing, the current organizational strategic plan needs to be compared against the best plan, which is developable at any given time. Another important stage the business which involves analysis of the new product idea for marketability and cost. At such stage, the idea might be discarded after the analysis of the production and marketing costs due to limitation in organizational ability or commercial prosperity. Concept Evaluation and Selection After defining the needs of the customers and other design requirements and developed the design concepts, it is important to choose a set of concept to develop the product further (Sun, 2016, 153). The first step involves screening which requires development of questionnaires to eliminate the concepts considered not feasible. Screening involves making comparison of various concepts to a series of absolute criteria. Questionnaire Questions Answers Is the developed concept feasible? Yes, the concept is feasible Will the concept work? No, the concept might not work. Maybe the feasibility of the concept is uncertain Will there be need for additional technological research and development? No, but it might work if something else works Will the concept meet the needs of the customers? Maybe the ability of the concept to meet the needs of the customers is uncertain or conditional. Is there need to have contingency plan for the concept? Yes, the concept requires a backup plan should there be failures to prevent adverse effects. Results Various research indicate that people are increasingly becoming susceptible to various health complications due to unhealthy eating habits (Sheehan, 2014, 42). These factors are pushing the consumers and health organizations to focus on motivating and educating people on health eating habits. With such knowledge, the eating habits continue to change with time forcing various businesses operating within the food industry to changes their menu and ingredients used in preparing the food. Based on the questionnaire administered, the response was positive on the feasibility of the project. This means that the project considered availability of resources, time, finances, and people in developing the new product. However, some of the respondents argued that that developed idea might not work considering that the success of the products depends on the success of other related products and industrial processes. This makes it important to consider the market and changing consumer consumption behavior to guarantee the success of the developed product. Since the development process considered various needs of the customers, the respondents showed trust on its ability satisfy the needs of the customers. Satisfaction forms the base in the development new products. The ‘Best’ Concept For this product development, the business will use Pugh’s concept selection method, which has seven defined steps. The first step involves choosing the criteria for evaluating the concepts, which include the needs of the customers and requirements of other designs while defining the problem. The second step involves formulation of the decision matrix, which involves filling the row headings of the matrix while the concepts fill the column headings (Frey, Herder, Wijnia & Saubrahmanian, 2008, 159). Clarifying the design concept is the third step, which require the business to ensure that each organizational member understands every concept equally. This prevents conflicts and could lead to new or improvement in the concepts. Choosing the initial datum concept is the fourth step. The datum is the concept of reference; hence, selection of a poor one could cause the alternative concepts to look good and delaying of the decision-making. Running the matrix and evaluation of the ratings are the fifth and sixth steps respectively. The seventh step involves establishing the new datum and rerunning the matrix. The new datum represents the concept with the highest rating from the first round. Through the new datum, there is provision of different perspective for every comparison to assist in clarifying various strengths and weaknesses associated with each concept. References Ashman, H. (2013). Applying Processes that Accelerate New Product Development. Accelerating New Food Product Design and Development, 5(2), 123-131. Brown, D. R., & Henkel, S. (2007). How To Open A Financially Successful Pizza & Sub Restaurant. Atlantic Publishing Group. Franchise Business. (2013, April 4). Product innovation and pizza: a powerful combination [part three] - Franchise Business. Retrieved March 6, 2017, from http://www.franchisebusiness.com.au/news/product-innovation-and-pizza-a-powerful-combin-1 Frey, D. D., Herder, P. M., Wijnia, Y., & Saubrahmanian, E. (2008). The Pugh Controlled Convergence method: model-based evaluation and implications for design theory. (article.) Springer. Irudayaraj, J., & Reh, C. (2008). Nondestructive testing of food quality. Ames, IA: Blackwell Pub./IFT Press. Kissmetrics. (2016). Why Understanding Expectations Is Crucial For Customer Service. Retrieved March 6, 2017, from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/expectations-and-customer-service/ Mills, N., & Brooke, M. Z. (2012). New Product Development. London: Routledge. Queensland Government. (2016). Identifying customer needs | Business Queensland. Retrieved March 6, 2017, from https://www.business.qld.gov.au/starting-business/planning/market-customer-research/researching-customers/customer-needs Rossell, J. B. (2001). Frying: Improving quality. Cambridge: Woodhead Pub. Sheehan, N. T. (2014). Pizza, Pizza, Pizza: A Competitive Strategy Exercise. Organization Management Journal, 11(1), 40-46. Sun, D. W. (2016). Computer vision technology for food quality evaluation. Amsterdam: Elsevier/Academic Press. Tokuşoğlu, Ö., & Swanson, B. (2014). Introduction to Improving Food Quality by Novel Food Processing. Improving Food Quality with Novel Food Processing Technologies, 3(2), 3-8. Tristano, D. (2014, March 20). What U.K. Consumers Crave in Pizzas. Retrieved March 6, 2017, from https://blogs.technomic.com/what-u-k-consumers-crave-in-pizzas/ Ueno, S. (2014). Improving Quality of Agrofood Products by High-Pressure Processing. Improving Food Quality with Novel Food Processing Technologies, 5(4), 63-84. Wranx. (2015, May 26). The food industry: How to provide superior customer service. Retrieved March 6, 2017, from http://www.wranx.com/the-food-industry-how-to-provide-superior-customer-service/ Read More