Developing and commercialising your products
Product development and commercialisation are crucial for any ICT company, whether a start-up firm or an established business.
New products need to meet market needs. The most successful are those that solve problems that users of existing technologies face. New products often fail because they:
- take too long to get to market
- don’t meet customer needs
- are over-engineered or are inadequately tested
For new technology firms that rely on a single product, product failure can be terminal.
Getting it right
To be successful, you have to get the process right. Product development should follow a staged process from concept through to launch. At each stage there should be a go/no-go decision point where progress is reviewed. Ongoing development must be refined as necessary or a decision made not to progress any further.
An IIB business advisor will work with you one-on-one to help ensure your new products meet your target market. The IIB can also help you create partnerships with like-minded ICT businesses to facilitate product development.
Commercialising your product
There’s more than one way to turn a good idea into a commercial product. You can start a business to commercialise the product or license the product to another business. These options involve different levels of investment and potential financial return.
Most new ideas or inventions ultimately fail to find a market. Reasons for this include:
- lack of start-up funding
- poor management
- bad timing of market entry
- changes in the market due to new technology
The Ideas-2-Market website provides advice, ideas, hints and links that can help you turn your great ideas into commercial products.
Protecting your intellectual property
Your new product or service is your intellectual property (IP). You need to protect your IP to prevent its unauthorised use.
IP protection is more than just patenting. Patents are merely one form of IP protection and may not be suitable for your business. IP protection can be legislated or not legislated. Legislated IP protection includes copyright, moral rights, patents, trade marks, designs and layouts of integrated circuits. IP protection that is not legislated for includes confidential information and trade secrets.
You should carefully consider what IP protection strategy is right for you.
You should take into account the legal and commercial benefits of one form
of IP protection over another, as well as the cost of providing that protection.
For more information about intellectual property you should contact a registered
IP attorney or visit the IP
Australia website.
