Problems identified in planning products for 3 to 5 years ahead

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CONFIDENTIAL TO MEMBERS OF P.P.C.

 ADDITIONAL PROPRIETARY INSTRUMENTS 1965/7

APPENDIX II

In the course of the survey on additional instruments for the 1965/7 catalogues, it became clear that we lacked a great deal of the basic information needed for a quantitative technical and commercial assessment of the suggestions put forward.

We should examine our Organization with the following objects in mind :-

          1.      To put the designer in contact with a wide variety of potential customers. A specification cannot give all the details necessary for design - a large number of design decisions have to be made against a background of intimate knowledge on the part of the designer of many fields of application. In addition, a knowledge of need stimulates invention; the designer should obtain such information first-hand.

The designers in the Development Department at present obtain information on applications largely as a result of M.I. customer enquiries or difficulties; there is thus a tendency to base the design of our future products on the shortcomings of existing instruments.

Most of the direct contacts of designers are with Government Departments, mainly with the object of dealing with enquiries on instruments already developed, occasionally with newly developed instruments with a view to early assessment. In giving a glimpse of future requirements this practice has some advantage in that Government Departments think ahead rather more than industrial concerns; the direct contact with Government Departments is also easier to arrange than with industrial or other types of users.

There is a danger in relying too much on one type of user for information on applications and we should look for ways of bringing the designer in direct contact with more non-Government Establishments; we should also seek to balance the inward flow of enquiries from customers by an outward flow from M.I. aimed at establishing the basic needs of each field of application.

          2.      Improving our knowledge of the commercial aspects of the electronic instrument field. The need for this is obvious - a real improvement will enable us to assess more accurately the potentialities of those new-product suggestions which are not too far removed from existing M.I. or competitors products. Those form the bulk of new-product suggestions.

At present we rely on enquiries transmitted through technical representatives, M.I. sales figures, competitors' literature, Company news, National trading statistics and some articles in the technical press. The information flow is largely instigated from outside and is based on existing or newly developed instruments.

It is becoming more necessary to plan new products without taking into account past history and before reaction is obtained from our latest development (or our competitor's). We must therefore formulate the questions and direct them at our potential customers. We also wish to look at competitors' products and commercial policies in much more detail.

On this basis, a strong case can be made for an increase in the staff and level of activity of the Product Research and Applications Departments and the carrying out of market research.

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The stepping up of these activities will not however in itself give us the information we require. The crucial point is to formulate the right questions i.e. questions to which an answer can be obtained, such answers having an assessable degree of reliability and of use in formulating a policy based on our resources.

 How can we achieve those two objectives?

H.V. BECK

1.11.62.