Every growing and even some stagnant door and window manufacturers and their suppliers are constantly striving to develop new products and / or services, so they say. These new products are often developed in the manufacturer’s facility by a team including sales, marketing, distribution and manufacturing personnel. Some companies have new product development teams while others have a new product development manager. Regular meetings are held to decide which products merit new tooling / purchasing and eventually going to market.

The process usually begins by the sales team asking for a product they saw on a competitor’s product, and without which they will be at a competitive disadvantage. This isn’t really new product development in its true sense but rather “copy product development.” Generally speaking there are no patent infringements, and suddenly the new “copy” products are part of the market ante that every manufacturer has. There was no margin or sales lift to the manufacturer or any other players in the distribution chain, and in fact, the new “copy” product is soon a non-issue.

Some firms are becoming more inventive and really starting the new products process where it should start – in the market. Does this mean that persons with new product development titles and engineers should go way? Not at all. But in most companies in this fenestration business, they should be redeployed.

As anyone sits down to write a great novel or make a great meal, they need and are influenced by factors outside of their office or kitchen. These factors can not be experienced surfing the web or speaking over the telephone with field contactors (sales persons). They have to be seen, smelled, evaluated, tried, retried and finally established as something that is truly going to make a difference and provide the manufacturer and their customer a competitive edge. A sustainable competitive edge places a company as “top of mind” in the markets they serve for at least 6 months, until the copy innovators do their thing. Manufacturers can make the copy process more difficult and longer by making the copier’s entry fee higher.

More and more true innovators are conducting market research at job sites, consumer’s homes and retailers to discover what the market wants, needs and is willing to pay for. Making installation easier and better is one place where the window and door industry is starting to grasp the concept, and in some cases this is paying large dividends. Some manufacturers of windows and doors are even installing their products in new builds. Some are even installing in remodeling or replacement applications. What is the upside? Fewer product warranty claims since the install is “factory installed,” window packaging is removed from job sites cutting down on the contractors waste bills. These services were not developed in the factory. They were developed through field observations known as ethnographic studies, focus groups and one-on-one discussions and were fined tuned through a process called triangulation.

Ethnographic research is the same thing as the late Diane Fossi did when she observed the great apes. Teams including a qualitative researcher, new product development person and an engineering / manufacturing person conduct between 12 and 16 in-field observations. One may ask…”do I need an outside qualitative researcher?” An outside researcher brings no bias to the effort. If only company people are involved, the entire process is likely to be compromised.

Next ideas and products are tested through focus groups, and more one-on-one discussions. This may need to be repeated several times to get the right product for that competitive advantage. The immediate reaction by most company leaders is this process is too expensive. But wait! How many new products did not work out and how much money was spent on those in marketing and manufacturing efforts?

That’s triangulation. Conducting several tests to discover and zero in on where the competitive advantage truly is.