Is it commercially feasible?

The real test for whether your innovation will be successful is assessing its commercial feasibility.  The purpose of this exercise is to help you determine whether your idea should be developed further.  Determining commercial feasibility essentially means considering the various factors and elements that are commonly required for a business to profitably sell the innovation to a group of customers over a reasonable timeframe to justify the venture.  In simple terms, if a business can’t achieve a sustainably profitable outcome from realising the intended competitive advantage/s from the new idea’s implementation or selling the innovation to customers, then it is generally unlikely to be a commercially feasible idea.

Assessing commercial feasibility needs to be distinguished from evaluating technical feasibility in relation to new product development.  While a new idea or innovation may be considered fit for its intended purpose this does not automatically mean the innovation will be a commercial success.  Completing a technical feasibility is covered in the next section.  Furthermore, evaluating the commercial feasibility of your idea should be completed first and very early in the stages of your idea’s conception.

In the case of new product or service innovations there are generally three broad areas you need to examine to help you decide whether your proposed innovation has the prospects for commercial success.  To help you understand the scope of its potential, there are some straight-forward questions you need to ask.  Generally speaking, if you answer ‘no’ to any of the following questions you should explore in more detail the implications to the overall feasibility of the innovation.  Simply put, the answers to these questions will determine how, when, why (and if) you move forward with the idea.

Links to subsections of this topic

Is it commercially feasible?
Is it technically viable?