ABSTRACT
Opportunity identification represents an assessment of what potential opportunities present themselves to the company, and of these, which opportunities are the best ones for the company to pursue. In a simplistic sense, activities that comprise opportunity identification motivate the subsequent act of generating ideas for new products and services. In later stages of the product development process, market planning activities focus on developing individual marketing plans for specific products in the pipeline that are nearing the launch. In total, market planning activities involve studying the market, consumers, and broader industry to gain insights that will help opportunity identification efforts and to aid in developing product-specific marketing plans. Market planning involves analyzing the marketplace and can be envisioned as a process involving two related, yet distinct sets of activities: the situation analysis and marketing mix development. The opportunity identification stage therefore is firmly rooted in the initial parts of the product development process.
