Deck 3: Opportunity Identification and Selection: Strategic Planning for New Products

Question 1

Which of the following is most likely to be an advantage of a product platform?

A) It increases brand awareness.
B) It increases the market capitalization of the organization.
C) It offers cost efficiencies.
D) It improves the quality of the product.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

_____ are widely used and tend to be billion-dollar assets personally driven by CEOs.

A) Channel platforms
B) Category platforms
C) Product platforms
D) Brand platforms

Answer 2

D

Question 3

The value of an established brand is called its brand equity.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Mass customization is an activity where all customers of a product are offered products of their individual choices.

Question 5

Which of the following best describes the process of modularization?

A) It involves identifying similar platforms that share similar features.
B) It involves pooling in several functional areas into a single unit.
C) It involves decomposing complex systems into subsystems.
D) It involves generating complex systems from simpler systems.

Question 6

Ace Corporation, a software development firm, used a standard set of subcomponents for all its multimedia products. Ace is using a _____.

A) brand platform
B) category platform
C) channel platform
D) product platform

Question 7

The value of an established brand is called its _____.

A) brand mark
B) brand identity
C) brand equity
D) brand recognition

Question 8

In the research conducted by Social Technologies, it was found that the more people become accustomed to virtual spaces, the boundary between these and the real world will become increasingly pronounced.

Question 9

A variation on market drivers is the "distributor" when a producer develops new products to meet the needs of, or capitalize on the franchise of, resellers.

Question 10

Most marketing effort today is conducted at individual product platform levels.

Question 11

The core competencies of a firm are an excellent place to start the search for charter arena definitions.

Question 12

According to the portfolio evaluation model proposed by the Strategic Decision Group (SDG), "White Elephants" represent projects with high expected commercial value.

Question 13

According to the definition of goals in the Product Innovation Charter (PIC), goals are short-term, specific measures of progress/accomplishment.

Question 14

An example of an internal mandate of a firm is the introduction of new regulatory restrictions from regulatory bodies.

Question 15

A platform procedure that uses top-down mechanisms is intended to:

A) allow for less sharing of components within a platform.
B) become the basis for a family of products, possibly for years into the future.
C) generally increase the cost of the products as and when demand increases.
D) consolidate components within an existing family of products to gain scale economies.

Question 16

Which of the following is true of product planning?

A) If customers differ in their preferences, firms will often resort to a platform strategy.
B) Firms that take a domestic approach to new products, on average, do better than those that develop products for multinational markets.
C) If customer needs are very different; one way is to sell a global product that does not scale economies.
D) Firms adopt a "global" strategy to use several platforms to provide a single product across multinational markets.

Question 17

Platforms are not a possibility in service industries as they are for manufactured goods.

Question 18

The group of people who lead the development of a new product act as "a company within a company."

Question 19

In an attempt to allow for more sharing of components, Designethic, redesigns its power tool groups into specific product families, allowing for more sharing of components. This best exemplifies a _____.

A) multiple platform procedure
B) bottom-up platform system
C) global product platform
D) mindshare platform procedure

Question 20

The product innovation charter can be thought of as a kind of mission statement, but applied at a more micro level within the firm.

Question 21

Exploring technology and market drivers separately, then seeing their value when taken in combination is often called the _____.

A) primary-secondary measure
B) dual-drive idea
C) goals-objective metric
D) supply-demand ratio

Question 22

The procedure of converting technical specifications, to product features and benefits, to market needs is called the _____.

A) dual-drive strategy
B) just-in-time strategy
C) T-P-M linkage
D) customer franchise

Question 23

The problem of scope creep faced by a new product team in an organization is most likely to occur when:

A) employees in the organization are not aware of the PIC.
B) the PIC is not given to all the members of the new product team in the form of a written document.
C) the definition of the project constantly keeps changing.
D) the senior management is not involved in the implementation of the PIC.

Question 24

Identify the situation associated with the greatest amount of innovativeness risk.

A) Moderate changes in operations/marketing and major changes in consumer use behavior
B) Major changes in both operations/marketing and consumer use behavior
C) Major changes in consumer use behavior and moderate changes in operations/marketing
D) No change in operations/marketing and major changes in consumer use behavior

Question 25

Which of the following is a variation on the single-customer focus where each customer is offered a product of his or her individual choice?

A) Mass customization
B) Mass production
C) Mass standardization
D) Mass advertising

Question 26

A single overall plan for a product industry is typically known as a _____ platform.

A) brand
B) line
C) channel
D) category

Question 27

Which of the following, if implemented, will most likely ensure that the product innovation charter (PIC) is effective?

A) A PIC strategized toward processes rather than products
B) A PIC prepared by senior management to define the role and scope of innovation
C) A PIC developed exclusively by specific teams rather than cross-functional teams
D) A PIC that is relatively different from a mission statement

Question 28

Which of the following statements is true of a product innovation charter (PIC)?

A) It is typically prepared by middle-level managers.
B) It is designed to provide guidance to the business units on the role of innovation.
C) It reminds us that the new product strategy is primarily for processes and other activities.
D) It can be thought of as a kind of vision statement that is applied at macro level.

Question 29

Many futurists advocate studying the emerging trends in society and deriving product opportunities from them. A team of experts from the consulting firm Social Technologies identified six important and provocative modern trends. One of these trends is "The transparent self." Which of the following observations is primarily associated with this trend?

A) There is more information about consumers available to product managers now than ever before.
B) People like making spur-of-the-moment decisions based on real-time information.
C) People can sense their environment better now than ever before; what might be "too much information" for some might be essential information for others.
D) As more people become accustomed to virtual spaces, the boundary between these and the real world will become increasingly blurred.

Question 30

Any "rules of the road" requirements imposed by a situation or by upper management form a part of the _____ section of a PIC.

A) background
B) focus
C) goals-objectives
D) guidelines

Question 31

The best new product ideas are based on _____, which serve as the heart of the concept generation process.

A) channel desires
B) manufacturing efficiencies
C) profit goals
D) customer problems

Question 32

_____ is a way of executing a first-to-market strategy.

A) State-of-the-art breakthrough
B) Mass production
C) Mass customization
D) Adaptive applications

Question 33

A computer services firm decides to diversify in the field of cosmetics. According to the product market matrix, the innovativeness risk in this case could be _____.

A) none
B) low
C) medium
D) dangerous

Question 34

In the context of new product arena, focus is generally achieved by the use of four types of strengths or leverage capabilities. Which of the following is one of those strengths?

A) End-use experience
B) Employee skills
C) Market capitalization of the organization
D) Ownership of a scarce resource

Question 35

A manufacturer of ice creams introduces a new mint and lime flavored ice cream. According to the product/market matrix, the amount of innovativeness risk that the firm brings with this new flavor would be _____.

A) high
B) low
C) medium
D) dangerous

Question 36

Which of the following is the most common way to execute a first-to-market strategy?

A) State-of-the-art breakthrough
B) Applications engineering
C) Leveraged creativity
D) Adaptive applications

Question 37

Many futurists advocate studying the emerging trends in society and deriving product opportunities from them. A team of experts from the consulting firm Social Technologies identified six important and provocative modern trends. Which of these trends is most likely to influence consumers to make spur-of-the-moment decisions?

A) Co-creation
B) Just-in-time life
C) Sensing consumers
D) The transparent self

Question 38

Identify the section of the product innovation charter (PIC) which recaps the analysis behind the preparation of the charter.

A) Background
B) Focus
C) Goals-objectives
D) Guidelines

Question 39

A famous fast-food joint is offering all its regular customers a product of their individual choice through the program, "Have It Your Way". This is an example of:

A) mass production.
B) mass customization.
C) mass standardization.
D) mass advertising.

Question 40

Using glue to replace metal fasteners in electronics and automotive products best exemplifies _____.

A) leveraged creativity
B) state-of-the-art breakthrough
C) applications engineering
D) product adaptation

Question 41

Discuss the portfolio evaluation model proposed by the Strategic Decision Group (SDG) which takes into consideration expected commercial value and probability of technical success.

Question 42

To generate quick revenue, Helium Corp., an electronics manufacturing firm, launches its new product by making a technical improvement to one of its competitor's ERP offerings. This is an example of _____.

A) leveraged creativity
B) state-of-the-art breakthrough
C) applications engineering
D) product adaptation

Question 43

Elaborate how platforms can be used to gain competitive advantage globally with suitable examples.

Question 44

The first step in the process of creating a product innovation charter (PIC) for a firm is to:

A) rate and rank the strengths of the firm.
B) fill out the PIC form.
C) identify the weaknesses of the firm.
D) look for opportunities, inside the firm or outside it.

Question 45

Tweaking existing technology in a new way is usually called _____.

A) leveraged creativity
B) state-of-the-art breakthrough
C) applications engineering
D) product adaptation

Question 46

First-to-market products that do not involve any changes in technology, but the use is totally new primarily involve _____.

A) leveraged creativity
B) state-of-the-art breakthrough
C) applications engineering
D) product adaptation

Question 47

Write a short note on the Product Innovation Charter (PIC).

Question 48

In the context of a bubble diagram, incremental change on both extent of product change and extent of process change dimensions leads to _____.

A) next-generation products
B) new product platforms
C) enhancement products
D) breakthroughs

Question 49

What are the various ways of implementing the first-to-market strategy? Explain with examples.