If you know your buying customers and can help them with new, additional products, this is an interesting opportunity for you to grow. The challenges will primarily be to know your customers’ requirements and to develop, manufacture and sell suitable new products. Don’t presume you know your customers’ needs, but be sure to involve your customers in the needs analysis. Find pilot or lead customers with whom you have a good personal relationship and with whom you can collaborate on development. Investigate the market potential and your sales potential. Pricing new products is also a challenge. If necessary, implement systematic and tightly managed product development under the leadership of product management. Innovation management is helpful here.
As an alternative to your own product development, it may be interesting to purchase suitable complementary products which you can sell to your existing customers (cross-selling).
Once the product has passed the beta phase with your pilot customer (lead customer) and has proved popular, market your new product consistently. Work out clear messages and ensure sufficient reach for your marketing activities. Adapt your sales organization and manage your sales in an acquisition-oriented manner.,
But also ensure throughout the entire operations area that the new product is really available. This starts with procurement and continues through the selection of manufacturing processes and the manufacturing management, the packaging and the delivery to the aftersales service.
Monitor such expansion projects with tight controlling and risk management.