Q6. Discuss the firm’s new product screening process. (Ch. 15)
The screening process of new products for a firm can either make or break a company in
the success column. The purpose of screening new products is to find the attractive ideas and
drop the poor ideas as early as possible. The rationale is that product-development cost rise
substantially at each successive development stage. Most companies require new-product ideas
to be described on a standard form for a committee’s review. The description states the product
idea, the target market, and the competition and roughly estimates market size, product price,
development time and costs, manufacturing costs, and rate of return. The executive committee
then reviews each idea against the set of criteria (Kotler, 1967). In Altria Client Services, the
executive committee continually analyzes product ideas for their consumers since smoking
