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Great post, Barbara! Those are clear and precise arguments. Many companies face
great challenges when it comes to presenting a new or different product to the market. A
much greater problem arises when there is an update of an existing product. This makes the
previous product outdated and out of place. Distribution of the new product can also be a
challenge to companies. According to Wind and Mahajan (1997), some of the questions that
managers ask themselves include who will sell the products? Can you use the same
distribution channels you currently use? The shortage of new products in the market can be
attributed to underproduction by a company. The problem was due to inadequate market
analysis and inaccurate forecasting by the company.
Concerning the challenges that result from introducing a new product into the market,
they can be largely attributed to the consumers and suppliers. Distributors can panic by
ordering the new products in bulk as they anticipate high profits in the future. As a result, it
may lead to an imbalance in the demand and supply of the product. This may have been the
problem with Meditech’s underproduction of the new products.
Whenever there is a critical issue in a company, the customer service manager must
find the problem’s root cause. Customer feedback plays an important role in an organization
(Mourtzis et al., 2008). These customer service personnel come into contact with the
distributors who act as an intermediary between the company and the consumers. Typically,
it is the managers who receive feedback on the products. Meditech company was not in a
position to detect the problem of demand from their raw data. It was the customer service
manager's responsibility to inform them of this since he receives first-hand information from
the consumers.
Meditech can solve their problems by improving the forecasting methods to have a
good representation of the actual demand. They can also create an online feedback program
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where they receive feedback directly from the customers. Otherwise, the problems may
persist.
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References
Mourtzis, D., Vlachou, E., Zogopoulos, V., Gupta, R. K., Belkadi, F., Debbache, A., &
Bernard, A. (2018). Customer feedback gathering and management tools for product-
service system design. Procedia CIRP, 67, 577–582.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2017.12.264
Wind, J., & Mahajan, V. (1997). Issues and Opportunities in New Product Development: An
Introduction to the Special Issue. Journal of Marketing Research, 34(1), 1–12.
https://doi.org/10.1177/002224379703400101
