Case: Shake Awake - Developing a new product

Philips Innovations Centre (PIC) was an incubation centre started by the collaboration of
one of Indias well known private University and Philips India ltd. The objectives of this
incubation centre were to (1) nurture business ideas to become business products and
services as well as (2) to support first time entrepreneurs to move forward with their newly
initiated ventures. Mr. Manjunath the head of the centre, was very pleased to organize a
presentation (on May 5, 2001) by a group of 5 budding entrepreneur team ( BET)
consisting of Amit Tiwary, Niloy Debnath, Piyush, S, Sanjay Bansal, and Sunil Bhatnagar, who
just one month back had completed their post-graduation in management from one of the
premier b-schools of India. Niloy and Piyush were rehearsing the introductory lines for their
presentation to the audience group consisting of a team consisting of 2 entrepreneurs, one
market researcher, a banker and 2 academicians. Niloy said to the other group members"
See guys, I will go for the introduction followed by Piyush and the rest of you will present in
the sequence as we have agreed upon." All were in perfect agreement. The atmosphere
was bit charged up as the group had great expectation on their new product idea
developed. The team expected the experts to critically analyze and comment on the
feasibility and viability of the new product from a commercial angle. They believed that
some of the concepts that they learnt in product development, will come very handy and
useful in taking this effort forward.
Niloy started his introduction as follows Perhaps, no activity in business is more heralded
for its promise and is approached with more justified optimism than new product
development. The potential benefits of effective product development efforts are three improved market position, proper utilization of resources, organizational renewal and
enhancements. A new product to be developed should keep the product- market fit in
mind. Hence, a product -market strategy consist of answering the following questions:
a.
b.
c.
d.

What product will be offered?

Who will be the target customers?
How will the product reach customers?
Why will customers prefer our product to those of competitors?

Developing a new product is not an easy exercise. At any level, it needs some amount of
creativity and Innovation. Creativity, as we all know is the process of thinking and
generating novel and appropriate ideas. Innovation is the successful implementation of
those ideas within an organization. The product development process starts with the
realization of a challenge, problem or an opportunity for excellence. It is triggered and
________________________________________________________________________
This case titled Case: Shake Awake- developing a new product, was prepared by Dr. Simon George, Professor
of T.A. Pai management institute (TAPMI), as the basis for class room discussion, rather than to illustrate either
ineffective or effective handling of an administrative situation. This case is based on a study conducted by a team
consisting of Amit Tiwary, Niloy Debnath, Piyush, S, Sanjay Bansal, and Sunil Bhatnagar (students of the
Class of 1998) under Dr. Simon George, TAPMI, Manipal, e-mail: simon@tapmi.edu.in . Copyright T.A. Pai
management institute Manipal, Karnataka.2012.

moves faster and forward in the presence of favorable work environment, like minded
team members and sufficient incentives. A new product idea can be developed in
several ways. We are aware of methods like-Brainstorming, Delphi technique, attribute
listing, forced relationship, morphological analysis, Synectics etc. for generating ideas.
These methods can lead to the generation of very practical to very wild ideas which can
result in the development of a new product. In addition, the success of the right
product to develop heavily depends on the ability of the new product development
team members to collect data from all around ,by observation or through structured
ways and pool it effectively through the right process. Since a lot of energy, effort, time
and cost goes into developing of any product, it becomes very important to look at the
acceptability of the new product. We thought we as a team will keep some of the above
things in mind as we started to develop this new product." Niloy thus completed his
introduction.
Background
The idea of such a product idea and concept came to the teams mind based on an
assignment in their product development course, given by one of their professors in the
class, while doing their MBA. The objective of that assignment was to develop a
workable and feasible 'New product' using the understanding of the new product
development (Stage gate) process that they learnt and also the knowledge of Marketing
Research. The team was highly motivated by the acceptance of that assignment
presentation. Now, the team of 5 decided to make an elaborate presentation to the
expert team focusing on the various stages of their product development journey with
good focus on market research and its findings.
Research design
The team decided that they will try to identify unmet needs of potential customers (on
certain category of products) through research. The team decided that they will attempt
to develop products useful for students. Hence, the research itself research efforts to
develop the new product was divided into two phases. First, the Exploratory phase and
the second, Conclusive phase.
Exploratory research: The exploratory research phase consisted of first a brain storming
session among themselves, to decide on the product category. It was followed by
observation and brainstorming among the team members to identify unmet needs
followed by screening and selection of the best idea. Concept development was done
with the help of projective techniques. Need gap analysis of the concept was also. 2
focus groups with each group numbering 8 were organized among the student
population, with Amit and Sunil acting as moderators. The focus group discussion was
used to generate variables by which factor analysis could be carried out. The sample size
selected for this part of data collection was 25.

Conclusive research: A structured questionnaire was prepared to collect data which was
used to do conjoint analysis to identify the best mix of attributes and benefits in the
new product. 19 cards were developed and fed into a questionnaire which was ranked
by respondents and the data was used for conjoint analysis. Further, unstructured and
depth interviews were conducted to collect data at the stimulated test marketing stage
to get the feed back on the prototype.
Product development process
Step1 - Identifying the product category /class
BET decided to develop a mechanical or electrical home/hostel appliances product
which would be useful for students. BET identified the potential customers as students
staying in hostels. A few parameters were kept in mind, for deciding on the particular
product category.
Step 2 Ideation
Keeping in mind that students staying in hostels would be the potential segments, the
effort was to find out their problems or unmet needs.The beginning was at the
breakfast table in the mess, when one of the hostel mate - Ravi Bhograju complained
about Sandeep Alva who puts an alarm for 4 `o clock in the morning and did not
respond to it, in the hostel room . Sandeep who was Ravis roommate was getting
disturbed in his sleep as Ravi usually responded very slowly or even did not respond at
all, to the loud noise of his alarm clock. On further probing it was found that often
alarms in the morning disturb not only room partners, but also people staying in the
adjoining rooms in the floor. As a result of this an unmet need of the students was
identified. The need was for a device which would wake up the person concerned
without making noise and disturbing others.

Step 3 -Idea screening

4 unmet needs/problems/ ideas were identified. Problem-1 was the need for different
waking devise. Problem no.2 was shortage of time for students to take an elaborate
breakfast in the morning before the morning class. Problem 3 was shortage of space to
dry and hang clothes. Problem 4 was inconvenience caused by the shortage of space for
keeping shaving mirrors in the hostel. These problems/ideas came up for discussion
during the brain storming stage within the group.

All problems/ideas were discussed in detail and assessed for its attractiveness and
feasibility. They were assessed on parameters like:
a.
b.
c.
d.
d.

Knowledge and Expertise available among team members

Efforts required for development
Easiness of developing a prototype
Usefulness of the product to the identified segment
Commercial viability

After screening, we all decided that the best idea to pursue was that of the waking
devise.
Step 4 Concept development and testing
BET visualized the fundamentals or natural habits of how a person could be disturbed to
get his attention while he is awake or sleeping. A person when he/she is awake, his
attention can be grabbed either by calling him (listening), gesture (seeing), shaking him
(feeling). When a person is sleeping he has to be woken up either by calling him or
shaking him. They looked at the existing product. Presently, this need was met by the
alarm clock which functions on the principle of producing a loud sound, which wakes up
the person. This can be disturbing for other people living in the nearby rooms especially
for the roommate. The thinking was on, how the person could be woken up, without a
sound. The group came up with the concept of a clock which can wake one up without
making a noise. If it had a devise with a moving part, which when kept close to the body,
could make the person feel and thus wake him up.
A preliminary survey/exploratory study was conducted on hostel students, who were
asked whether they liked the idea and whether the new product would benefit them
(concept testing). The mode of data collection was personal and through depth
interviews. The concept in a brief written document was presented to the respondents
and their responses elicited. The data collected was used to do a need gap analysis.
Need gap analysis of the concept was done with the help of a structured questionnaire
which was run on 25 respondents (see table-1). Though some people were not receptive
to the idea, the overall response was satisfactory.

Table-1: Evaluation of the concept by respondents

Features of the product
Waking devise
concept
No sound
9
Surety of waking
5
Convenience in method of
8
waking up
Design flexibility
7
Ease of operation
7
Impact on others
8
Price
4

Alarm clock

Gap level

1
7
4

8
-2
4

8
8
2
7

-1
-1
6
-3

Note: There were on other devises other than a few foreign watches, in addition to alarm clocks which
made beep sound for waking one. Need gap score was computed by multiplying the concept score (need
level) with gap level and summing them up. BET kept the need gap score above 100, for going to the next
stage.

Step 5 Focus group discussion for product details generation

The development of the concept and its was followed by a focus group discussion (
FGD). It was done to bring out the various benefits, attributes and design types of this
waking devise. List of seventeen variables were developed (list of the variables given in
Annexure 1). Data was collected from a sample of 24 students, and their responses
were taken on an importance scale of 1 to 5 for all the seventeen variables (Responses
shown in Annexure 2). From these responses a factor analysis was done. The factor
analysis produced seven factors (Eigen Values more than 1) out of which the first three
factors were chosen for further analysis. These three factors explained 56.4 percent of
the total variation. The three factors were named as follows: (1) Technology of the
watch (2) Aesthetics/looks and (3) Price.
Step 6 Product Planning
The product planning stage consisted of determining the various combinations of
features desired by the prospective customers. A conjoint analysis was done on the
three factors identified. The various levels considered for the three factors were as
follows:
(a) Technology of the watch (3 levels) -digital, quartz & mechanical
(b) Aesthetics/looks (2 levels) -rectangular & oval
( c) Price (3 levels) - Rs. 199, Rs. 240 & Rs. 299
Initially an orthoplan was run on the computer specifying the various factors and the
levels. The program generated 19 cards in all (15 actual & 4 holdout cards shown in
Annexure 5). These cards were inserted into the questionnaire used for the survey
where the respondents were asked to rank the cards in their order of preference.

(Questionnaire shown in Annexure 3 and the responses shown in Annexure 4). The
results of the conjoint analysis showed that the most important factors in the order of
importance are technology (55.83%), price (42.59%) and looks (31.58%). The most
preferred combination as determined from the utility scores of the various levels were
as follows
Technology
Looks
Price

Quartz
- Rectangular or Oval
- Rs. 299

The above combination was kept in mind while designing the product.
Step 7 Product Design
(a) Internal
The data obtained from the conjoint analysis was used for designing the product. The
internal functioning of the clock was developed and is as follows:
The movement of the clock shaft was achieved through the use of a stepper motor and
a connecting rod. When the time reached the preset alarm time, an electric signal in
the form of a pulse was fed to the NAND gate 1 (see annexure-5 fig. Ia ). The output of
the NAND gate was fed to the four bit counter. The output of the MSB (most significant
bit) and LSB (least significant bit) of the four bits were taken. The MSB output was given
to two stator windings of the stepper motor while the LSB output was given to the
remaining two windings. While the output of the MSB was one, the output of the LSB
would be zero and vice versa. Due to this , one set of windings received one output and
the other receives zero.
This caused the rotor to rotate and correspondingly the shaft rotated. A disc was
attached to the shaft (refer annexure6) and the disc was riveted to one end of the rod
while the other was connected to the rubber head which moved up and down in
rectilinear motion depending on the rotation of the shaft. This movement of the rubber
head was controlled with the help of two supports shown in (Annexure- 5 fig. I b). The
presence of the supports was necessary to keep the rubber head in position. The
diameter of the disc was 1 inch and had the same specification for the height of the
rubber head, while that of the connecting rod was 1.3 inch. These dimensions were
kept less so that the overall height of the clock is about 2 inches and the clock did not
cause discomfort when kept under a pillow.
The up and down motion of the rubber head shook the pillow under which the clock
was kept, which eventually shook the person and woke him up. The up and down
motion of the rubber head l continued till the person switched off the alarm. The alarm
switch was designed as a button on the body of the clock. When this button was
pressed, it opened the circuit by disconnecting the electric signal from the NAND gate 1.

As a result no output went to the stepper motor which stopped rotating leading to the
stoppage of the e up and down motion of the rubber head.
(b) Product design -external
This step gives the final shape to any product shape, size, colour, style etc. The shape of
the clock was made oval. It was designed on the lines of an egg cut into half. The rubber
head was positioned on top of the of the clock. The main body ( the outer) of the clock
was made of hardened rubber, while the body of the clock was made of plastic. The
shape of the clock was designed keeping in mind the aesthetic requirements of the
customer, comfort and convenience of use. Besides this, the clock was to be available in
several colors such as red, blue, green and black. The background color of the dial was
suggested to be white. The base length of the clock was 6 inches and breadth was
about 4 inches. The clock was a quartz one as was preferred by the customers (refer
conjoint analysis)
Step 8 Prototype development
A prototype was also made. Moreover, the detailed drawings and circuit diagrams were
provided too. A tentative costing of the product which helped to identify the tentative
price points It was decided to price it at Rs. 299 . The clock was given the brand name s
Shake-Awake, to indicate its properties.
Step 9 Market testing
A modified Simulated Test Marketing (STM) technique was done to measure the market
response to the product and know its actual acceptance. A watch shop near a University
campus was identified, to carry out the test. The following procedure was used for the
Simulated test marketing programme.

A few potential customers were invited to a shop

A description of various products available in the shop, was provided to the
respondents.
Pictures of the available products were shown to the people.
Proposed usage situations of the various products also explained.
The respondents were told to choose products they want to purchase , if money was
no constraint to them.
Those respondents who choose 'Shake Awake' were allowed to use the product
Feed back collected from the above respondents about its utility and usefulness.
All non-purchasers were exit-interviewed, as they did not show any intent to
purchase.

The response to the simulated test marketing was satisfactory, as 25 % of those who
participated, showed interest in the new product. The full test Marketing was hence not
considered.

Step 10 -Commercialization
BET prepared a marketing plan , based on the findings form the earlier earlier steps.
The marketing plan consisted of the description of the target segment, when and where
it will be launched. In addition, it will more importantly contain the marketing strategies
and tactical plan for the product launch. The product development team had a few
rounds of discussion with a company based in Pune, called - Samyukta (performance
details of the company shown in Annexure 7&8), Samyukta was medium scale company
which manufactured clocks, time pieces, alarm and mixers. They showed interest to
adopt this product and to take up the launch and actual marketing of the new product.
Samyukta showed interest to adopt the product by targeting the hostel students first
and to distribute the product through watch retail outlets as well as electronics and
electrical shops in the states of West and South India. But they wanted the product
development team to rework on a few steps in the product development and research
processes. One of them, who was part of the presentation, was not specifically satisfied
with the Concept development, product planning and the marketing test stages. BET
worked on their suggestions. The team later with the help of the company Samyukta,
made a few pieces of the actual product, which was sold to a few customers. The
feedbacks of a few customers were a revelation (See annexure-7-). Piyush of BET
wondered whether not doing a House of Quality exercise was an oversight. BET realized
that they still have some more work to be completed, before making Shake Awake
commercially viable.

********************

Annexures

Annexure-1 : List of Variables generated from the Focus Group

Should have a compact size

Should have a trendy design

Should be priced lower than the ordinary alarm clocks

Should be rugged

Should be fancy

Should be available in various colors

Should have both movement and alarm facilities

Should be mechanical

Should have a quartz movement

10

Should have a fluorescent display

11

Should be able to fix it to clothes

12

Should be digital

13

Should have a built in calculator

14

Should be waterproof

15

Should have a talking part associated

16

Should have a streamlined shape

17

Should be unbreakable

Annexure- 2
RESPONSES FOR FACTOR ANALYSIS
Statement/
Resp Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 17
1

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

10

Annexure 3: Questionnaire for conjoint analysis

Dear friend,
The following gives you the various combination of features associated with a new
Vibrating Timepiece.
Please rank each of the cards according to your preference. For eg. Rank 1 means that
the particular combination appeals to you the most.
Card 1
Technology of watch mechanical
LOOKS rectangular
PRICE Rs. 240
Card 2
Technology of watch digital
LOOKS rectangular
PRICE Rs. 199
Card 3
Technology of watch mechanical
LOOKS oval
PRICE Rs. 299
Card 4
Technology of watch mechanical
LOOKS Oval
PRICE Rs. 240
Card 5
Technology of watch mechanical
LOOKS Oval
PRICE Rs. 199
Card 6
Technology of watch digital
LOOKS Oval
PRICE Rs. 199

11

Card 7
Technology of watch digital
LOOKS rectangular
PRICE Rs. 299
Card 8
Technology of watch quartz
LOOKS Oval
PRICE Rs. 240
Card 9
Technology of watch quartz
LOOKS rectangular
PRICE Rs. 240
Card 10
Technology of watch quartz
LOOKS rectangular
PRICE Rs. 299
Card 11
Technology of watch digital
LOOKS Oval
PRICE Rs. 299
Card 12
Technology of watch quartz
LOOKS Oval
PRICE Rs. 299
Card 13
Technology of watch mechanical
LOOKS rectangular
PRICE Rs. 199

12

Card 14
Technology of watch quartz
LOOKS Oval
PRICE Rs. 199
Card 15
Technology of watch digital
LOOKS Oval
PRICE Rs. 240
Card 16 (Holdout)
Technology of watch mechanical
LOOKS rectangular
PRICE Rs. 299
Card 17 (Holdout)
Technology of watch digital
LOOKS Oval
PRICE Rs. 299
Card 18 (Holdout)
Technology of watch quartz
LOOKS rectangular
PRICE Rs.240
Card 19 (Holdout)
Technology of watch mechanical
LOOKS rectangular
PRICE Rs. 299

13

Annexure-4: RESPONSE SHEET FOR CONJOINT ANALYSIS

The first row indicates the card number. Please indicate your preference number below
one of them,
Card no
Resp
nos.
2

5 6

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19

17 9 10 7

4 11 12 13 15 19 17

16

12

13

17 15 6 11

2 14 18 19

8 11

10

10

3 15 11 14

1 18 12 19

13

6 18 19 14 15 16 13 10

17

13

3 16 15 11

4 19

8 14

10

5 6

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19

10

10

5 17 7 16

11

5 17 7 16

12 11 1 3

13 12 8 9 16 15 14
2 10

17 9 10 7

3 18

7 17

1 19 12

7 18 17 16 19 11

7 17 14 13 12 11 16 15

4 18

19

3 15 11 14

13

4 11 12 15 13 14 16

19

3 18

6 12 16 19

14

Annexure- 5: Circuit diagram of the waking devise

15

Annexure-6: Feedback comments on Shake Awake

The price is high

The design/shape can be better.
The material can be different.
The shaking is not strong enough.
The effectiveness depends on the type of pillow used.
If my body/head moves out of the pillow, the effectiveness is not there.
I wish the shaking/waking is of a different type.

16

Annexure 7: Companys (Samyukta) Performance

Products: Clocks, Time pieces, alarm and Food processor .
Market : Southern and Western States

PERFORMANCE

Amount (Rs. Cr.)

Amount (Rs. Cr.)

1996

1997

Gross Sales

15.5

17.05

Net Sales

13.90

15.29

Total Income

14.8

16.50

Cost of material

5.05

7.50

Promotion costs

0.95

1.15

*Cost of Sales

12.95

14.3

PBDIT

1.85

2.20

* The company feels that there will be an increase of 18% to their existing fixed cost, if they
take up production of the new product.

Annexure 8: Potential Market

State

Population

% of students

% of hostel students
as a % of students*

Tamil Nadu

55.9

15.0

9.0

Karnataka

45.0

18.0

12.0

Gujarat

41.3

13.0

4.0

Kerala

29.7

15.0

5.0

Goa

1.2

8.0

4.0

Andhra Pradesh

66.5

14.0

5.0

Maharashtra

78.9

13.0

5.0

* A study conducted in 2003, showed that 10% of the hostel students use alarm clocks. 40% of
this no. may think of buying a Shake Awake type of product if the price is competitive and
attributes as well as performance are attractive

17