Market opportunities tend to fluctuate, meaning that a new service or product may have a specific window of opportunity in which to build market share. Releasing a product prematurely can mean a lack of consumer demand, while waiting too long can result in an excess of competition with more well-established brands. Identifying an opportune time to launch can thus mean the difference between a flourishing new product and a quickly forgotten one.

Although it may seem advantageous to be the first to market with a new product, it's also important to evaluate what can be gained by waiting.

According to a recent study published in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, "the optimal time of entry depends on the hostility of the learning environment since the latter has an impact on dimensions of performance, such as profit potential and mortality risk."

In other words, waiting can allow an entrepreneur to learn about market conditions by observing the performance of other products, but it also carries the risk of losing certain competitive advantages. According to the study, it is better to wait in non-hostile learning environments in which "the information to be learned is abundant and when learning from others is relatively more effective at increasing performance than learning from participation."

"If you enter early, you are more of a pioneer. You can have a competitive advantage. If you cannot do any of this, then it may not be a good strategy, because there is always a cost to being a pioneer," Moren Lévesque, a researcher at the University of Waterloo and co-author of the study, recently told BusinessWeek.

A hostile learning environment, like one in which knowledge is protected by intellectual property restrictions, may not be conducive to waiting. In these cases, launching your product first can help secure a customer base, suppliers or establish your own intellectual property rights.

A good deal of preparation is normally needed before a product can be released. The Crimson Consulting Group offers the following strategies for implementing a successful product launch:

• Assign Dedicated Resources. It's important to have a dedicated team working exclusively on a new product launch and helping to build market momentum. The team can include members from project management, public relations, marketing, product management and events management. Whether using in-house staff or outside consultants, the team should be assembled with sufficient lead-time to handle the launch.
• Don't Over-Commit Your Product. Making promises about your product it may not deliver can lead to disappointment upon launch. Before releasing it, avoid over-selling your product's capabilities, benefits, differentiation from prior product gaps and benefits to shareholders.
• Implement a Scientific Launch Process. Applying the same scientific approach to a product launch as the one used for product development can provide organizational cohesion, consistency across product lines and alignment of cross-functional activities. Product development methods, such as time-phased tracking and end-to-end processes, can significantly strengthen launch effectiveness.
• Leverage Collaboration Tools. Actively employing collaboration technologies, such as Web conferencing, file networking and telecommuting, can help integrate widely dispersed teams and enable multiple project groups to coordinate their launch efforts.

In order to time the product launch to meet a specific window of opportunity, planning should be implemented in the earlier stages of development. Yet, in a survey by Sequent Learning Networks, only 24 percent of product managers believed a launch plan should be at least 80 percent complete by the time the product's business case has been finalized.

Launch planning may need to begin as early as the product's concept phase and should be nearly complete by the time the final business case is drafted. This is to ensure that new distribution channels can be established in time or existing ones can be modified. In addition, the sales force may need time to build new relationships in order to gain sufficient market access.

The Cannon Advantage, a management consulting newsletter, offers the following checklist of factors to be met before a product can be launched:

• The audience is targeted;
• The sales force is trained and focused;
• Samples and demos are in place;
• Pricing is set;
• Promotions are in place;
• Displays are ready;
• Distribution is ready;
• Inventory is in stock;
• Advertising is set; and
• Press releases are timed.

Although it may be impossible to find the exact best time to release a product, by evaluating market conditions and making the appropriate preparations, a company can take advantage of a window of opportunity and maximize the chances that a product launch succeeds.

Resources

Entrepreneurs' Decisions on Timing of Entry: Learning from Participation and from the Experiences of Others
by Moren Lévesque, Maria Minniti and Dean Shepherd
Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, March 2009

Think Twice About Being First to Market
by John Tozzi
BusinessWeek, May 19, 2009

Four Pillars for Product Launch
by Rick Sklarin and Ling Gee
Crimson Consulting Group, May 29, 2005

How Early is Too Early? Product Launch Planning, Part 2
Sequent Learning Networks, 2008

Taking Aim
by Robert E. Cannon
The Cannon Advantage, May 2005