Developing a new product means working with a lot of moving parts. But you
can gain an advantage over competitors by reducing your time to market.

In this blog post, we will discuss how to do that.

Time-to-market (TTM), also referred to as “speed-to-market,” is the amount
of time it takes for a product to go from the idea stage until it’s ready
for sale. And there are a few reasons why companies should care about
getting this process right:

The more control you have over the process of developing products, the
easier it will be to predict TTM and get technology to customers while
it’s still fresh.
When you have a dependable schedule, you will have an easier time
anticipating things like transportation time/cost, personnel need and
build timelines.
If you can predict when a product will ship, you can take advantage of
marketing opportunities such as trade shows.
The earlier you can have a product on the market, while still maintaining
quality, the less competition you face, and the more revenue you can
generate.
Let’s look at a few ways to improve your time-to-market.

  1. Simplification
    It may be tempting to include as many features as possible when
    envisioning a new product. But the need to produce a product that “does
    it all” in order to beat the competition will lead to cost overruns, and
    missed scheduling.

It may be quicker and simpler to focus on incremental innovation: First
develop a basic version of the product, and follow it with a series of
smaller projects to add new functions.

And make sure every step of your development process adds value. Rely on
outside resources if that’s feasible. It may be worth working with an
external organization if it improves your time-to-market.

  1. Communication
    Developing a new product can’t happen in a vacuum. Every relevant group
    needs information and a chance to offer input at each stage. Having the
    manufacturing side of a business step in only when the manufacturing stage
    is about to begin will slow things down.

Many of the important decisions involving your product – involving
packaging, shipping, warehousing, delivery, marketing – all need to happen
before manufacturing begins.

If you want to tell customers “This product will be ready to sell on this
date,” it needs to arrive from their warehouse by that date.

Before you can ship to your customer, you need to understand how it will
get there and how you’ll package the product. And to understand all of
this, you’ll need to be able to predict when your product is ready to be
manufactured.

A good development team should involve communication from people across
your organization, or at the very least, from your manufacturing and
marketing teams.

  1. Rapid Iteration
    A team that’s able to provide Rapid Iteration – that is, one that can
    design, build, test and fix a product — has a big advantage in the
    marketplace. Shorter DBTF cycles and concurrent engineering work can shave
    weeks off your time-to-market timeline.

If you’re looking for a contract manufacturer who can get your product to
market quickly without sacrificing quality, contact Mars International.

Our SMT line helps customers by creating prototypes to support early-stage
tests of new designs, working on an assembly line that is RoHS compliant.

And communication is part of our culture. Our organization works closely
together, and will work closely with your team at all levels.

By communicating and simplifying, Mars can help reduce the time-to-market
for your next product.

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