1.

0 INTRODUCTION

A car rental agency is a company that provide automobiles for rent to people for short
periods of time, usually ranging from a few hours to a few weeks. Car rental agencies mostly
serve or provide service to persons who needed a temporary vehicle, for example those who
do not have their own car, travellers or tourists who are out of town, or owners of damaged or
breakdown vehicles who are waiting for their car to be repaired or insurance compensation.
Car rental agencies may also serve the self-moving industry needs, by renting vans or trucks,
and in certain markets other types of vehicles such as motorcycles or scooters may also be
offered. Besides that, car rental agency also is one of the well-known business in Malaysia
because it is easy to be run. It only need a few cars and space to store the cars itself. That is
why people are attracted to run this agency in order to add their income. Sometimes, it can be
a minor solution for the traffic problem that our country faced right now because it will reduce
the amount of car owned by the resident in Malaysia. Plus, the trend for renting car in Malaysia
has been increased from the survey conducted especially involving teenagers because they
found it luxurious to use the car as the transportation. Then, it is important for us to develop
or study to make car rental services is interesting and quite established among the citizens.

The car rental service provided by the company is the business that deals with a lot of
customer every day. The booking system used by the company is manual, which is through
contact number. The owner and the staff fully rely on their phone using WhatsApp, messaging
and call made by the customer. Thus, it is very difficult for them to sort out and keep track of
the customer bookings since a lot of customers want to rent the car every day. Besides, the
staff has to record data of the car rental manually into the computer. This consumes time since
the data collected is too many including the customer’s detail, booking date, booking period
and their transaction. It eventually will reduce the productivity of the company and make it less
efficient while there is more systematic way to overcome this problem. The management and
arrangement of the data has become difficult for the staff to produce a monthly report or an
annual report to the owner. This report is quite important in order to ease the audit process
and develop profit table sheet. Besides that, it is common for company to manage the monthly
or annually report since it is obligation to establish some company but it will be difficult if the
system of collection data itself is quite troublesome. Furthermore, the system is also quite old-
fashioned and does not suitable with the technological growth nowadays. This is one of the
drive for us to create car rental app in order to ease the booking system and make it more
systematic.
 There are several methodologies used to collect the information from the owner of the
company about the car rental service and previous booking system they used. The company
chosen is Advance Mind Car Rental, which provide car rental service. Our group has
approached and contacted the owner of the company to collect information. The owner had
given good responses regarding the questions that were asked. Information such as the
organizational structure, history and services provided by the company are collected. Besides,
the business problems found in the company are also discussed. We also gather information
on survey through the target customer whether they want change in booking system which is
more systematic and advanced. Through this survey, we also can identify our target customer
or market for this car rental app. Unfortunately, there are several limitations for us during this
study that cannot be avoided. First is during process of collecting the information from the
owner company itself. Sometimes, he is late to reply our messages abut the company because
he got other commitment with his own career. So, this thing will sometimes make the process
of obtaining information delayed. There is also limitation involving developing this. Since we
are from the field of chemical engineering and very different field from the product that we are
proposed. Obviously, we do not know anything about the coding to build the app and establish
it in the market so we will need help from other student in software engineering. The conclusion
is this car rental app will need full determination and commitment from us in order to solve the
problem faced from the owner of the car rental service in Malaysia.

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2.0 NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

2.1 Definition

New product development (NPD) is a process of bringing a new product to the

marketplace. It is involves a series of steps includes the conceptualization, design,
development and marketing of newly created or newly rebranded goods or services. The
purpose of product development is to develop, keep up and increment of company’s market
share by fulfilling a buyer request. Not every product will appeal to every customer or client
base, so identifying the target market for an item is a basic part that must be take into
consideration first during the product development process. Quantitative market research
should be conducted at all phases of the design process, including before the product or
service is conceived, while the product is being designed and after the product has been
launched.

2.2 Classification of NPD

There are several classifications of new product which are

i) New-to-the-world products: Refer to a completely new product that has never been
available in the market. This type of product indicates what most people would define
as a new product. These products are inventions to create a whole new market.

ii) New-to-the-firm products (new product line): The products are not new to the world,
but new to the firm. This new product may allow a company to enter an established
market for first time.

iii) Addition to existing product lines: A product line is a set of items inside a specific
classification. Companies can make an extra product line that can be added to their
already established product line.

iv) Improvements and revisions to existing products: These are the new products that
replace the old product with better performance or better quality.

v) Repositioning: Repositioning are the products that are retarget for a new user and
new target market and also for another application.

vi) Cost reduction: Refer to the new items that just substitute the existing items, giving
the user comparable performance with a lower cost.

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2.3 New Product Development Process

2.3.1 Research & Development

The Research and Development (R&D) is the efforts taken to discover and study a
new knowledge, product or process. The R&D is very important for new innovation since there
are no historical or preliminary data, thus helps to prevent the failure of the new innovation
created. The efforts started by generating idea, screening idea and market survey.

For the first stage which is idea generation, our team observe the existing technology
or method and find the gaps of the existing technology to our issues. Then, we were
brainstorming to generate idea that can overcome the gaps found. The existing technology
that we observe is the Uber and Grab booking application. These application is for driver
booking with a random type of car. Moreover, from our observation, we found that there are
many car rental advertisements placed at restaurant, street poles and buildings. From our
brainstorming, we generate an idea of building a car rental application called EZ Car Rental
which is faster, easier and user friendly. The customers only use their mobile phone or
computer to make a booking.

The second stage which is screening idea, it is the process of evaluating innovative
product ideas, strategies and marketing trends. This process helps us to determine whether
our idea could offer a viable return or not. In this stage, we define our innovation scope to
consider some parameters such as financial and compatibility of our booking application
system to the customers. To attract and gain the customer’s good impression and expectation,
we have planned our strategy which is our idea, EZ Car Rental application can be downloaded
free by them using their mobile phone or computer. Since it can be downloaded free, thus, the
number of customer that will have this application is high. When the number is high, the
possibility and chances of they use this application to rent a car is increase. From the high
booking, we can gain more profit.

The last stage which is market survey, it is the process of investigating the current
state of the market towards the new product. This survey include an analysis of the customer’s
needs and preferences. Our target customers are teenagers, students, people that do not own
a car, backpackers, travellers and tourists. The number of those customers are usually
increasing when semester break, public holiday and vacation promotion by any interesting
places. To complete this survey, we use google form application to collect and analyse data.
The online form created were passed through a group of people and they had voluntarily
answer the questions provided.

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CUSTOMER TREND CANVAS (CTC)

Basic Needs

1. Transportation
 Transportation is one of the vital thing in the daily life no matter what kind of
thing that we want to do whether going to workplace, campus, training or
vacation. Students are mostly tended to use transportation in order to get to
their campus if they stay outside the college. Then, the car rental will be one of
the choices for them as the main transportation.
2. Entertainment / Excitement
 The entertainment or excitement here refer to whenever any customers go on
holiday by using the car rent. They can just book the car from the car rental
application especially students who did not own any car that want to go on
holiday with their friends.
3. Lifestyle
 It is common lifestyle for the people nowadays to use the car as the
transportation. It is become the regular trend to use the car whether you own it
or rent it because it is safer compared to motorcycle or other transportation.

Drivers of Changes

The first changes are technological change. In this world nowadays, people can access
the internet just by their hands and can access it everywhere by using the phone or tablet. So,
this car rental app is quite parallel with the technological change which can make it their daily
booking more systematic and advanced.

The next change is economic growth. As we know, our country right now is having
inconsistent economy and that kind of worrying for the youngsters to at least buy their own
car. Instead, they will use their money for other purpose which is more important. Then, they
are more likely to just use car rental and Grab or Uber if they tend to use the car.

Lastly, type or model of the car in the car rental also is the one of change. In the car
rental app, we also display the type of car that available in the company which customer can
choose and book easily.

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Emerging Customer Expectation

For this car rental app, we have identified several emerging customer expectations
from previous manual booking system. The first one is they want the app to save time during
the booking. By this app, it will make the booking system become faster since it is not involving
the owner itself and can be doing it online. Next, convenience and user friendly. This app
actually is very easy to be access by the phone or tablet. The customer only need to register
it once and then can particularly access it whenever they want. The last expectation is
affordable. This expectation is actually suitable with our car rental app since the user does not
need to pay any registration fee to access the app and for other car rental business owner that
want to buy use our app for their business, the charge is also cheap and affordable.

Inspiration

The inspiration in innovation of this car rental app is basically taken from My Taxi, Grab
and Uber. We are delighted on how these apps actually attract the customer use their service
and of course it is very efficient and systematic. The difference of these apps from our app is
only the service provided which they provide the transportation service with driver until
customer reach the destination only. The interphase of app also is inspired by these apps and
the features also designed ease the process of booking. There is another app that much
similar to our app in the market already which is Uniride. This app is designed for student
UITM Puncak Alam only and it has the fee that need to be paid for the registration annually.
This is slightly different with our designated app which we do not apply fee for the registration
and the coverage area for our service is wider.

Innovation Potential

1) Easier and faster than manual booking

2) Create more systematic management
3) Provide feedback section for customer if they have any comment regarding our
service so that we can improvise in the future.

Who (Target market)

 Student / Teenager
 People that do not own car
 Backpackers / travellers / tourists

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7
2.3.2 Product Design/Features

Nowadays, all the car rental agencies still using the existing system to run their
businesses. The existing system that are being used by all the car rental agencies is the
manual booking system. The user has to contact the office to get information for the available
car for rent and book their car. There are many problems faced by the car rental agencies in
managing the manual system. Using a manual system, it is time consuming and resulted in
increasing the workload. Next, due to increasing workload of keeping records of each
transaction to process data and so manually maintaining details was more expensive. Due to
tedious and fatigue nature of the task, the system resulted in increasing errors and mistakes.
It is difficult in locating the information. The car rental agencies also having difficulty in
maintaining reports and modifying any information.

The new product that can be develop for the car rental agencies is the online booking
application. The new system is totally computerized system. The new system provides
features such as time efficiency to show car details, the available of the car, user profiles and
whatever the customer will give the feedback to the admin. From this new system is user
friendly, easy to access. The user can access this application everywhere and at any time
because the nowadays all people are using a smartphone.

Functional Specification

User/Admin Description
User Can view information of available car,
booking car, easily get the car on rent and
also can give feedback and can inquiry.
Admin Can add a car, manage booking car and rent
and also view feedback and enquiry.

Module Specification

Specification Description
View available cars It is a system design especially for large,
premium and small car rental business. The
user can view the list of available cars.
Booking Car The user can book for the car that they
interested to rent based on the viewed list.

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 Easily get the car on rent The customer can easily get the car
whenever they need to on the rent with use
of this system.
Give feedback The customer can give the feedback to the
admin.
Enquiry The inquiry can easily done by the user.
Add car The admin can add the car on the system so
that the user can see the available cars and
book the car.
Manage rent The admin can manage the rent and update
the rent list.
View feedback The admin easily view the feedbacks and
solve the query.

The new system for will be have the function as listed below:

Features/Functions Description
Home button Welcoming the user to the application, description of the company.
Services button The services that are provided by the company, list of price for rent.
Catalogue button The user can view all the list of the available car.
Registration/Log in The new user need to register first before they can proceed to rent
the car. The user that have been registered before just need to log
in using their registered id and password.
Booking The user can book the car that they want through this function.
Feedback The user can give feedback to the admin.
About us Tell the company contact information, address of the company
Promotion list The promotion that are being offer by the company will be listed in
this promotion list.
Inquiry The user can write and send their inquiry.

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2.3.3 Concept Testing

Concept testing is defined as the process of investigation of potential consumers’

reactions to a proposed new product or service before launching or introducing the product or
service to the market. It is the early test for the newest product designed. Concept testing
involving the process using quantitative and qualitative methods to assess the user response
to a new product idea before it can be introduced the product to the market.

The main objectives of the concept testing are:

 To choose the most promising alternative from a set of alternatives

 To get an initial notion of user’s recognition and commercial prospects of the concept
 To find out the potential target market who is interested in the new product concept
 To indicate the direction for further work development

Our product is EZ Car Rental is an online application for user or consumer rent a car.
The communication of the product concept is delivered to the user or consumer using verbal
description, for instance, the built application is an easy application, have interesting interface,
can be access at anywhere and anytime, have some features/button such as home button,
services button, catalogue, register or log in button, booking button on the apps so that it can
be easily for the user to use the app, the user also can give feedback to the company.

The diagram below shows the use case diagram for the initial idea or concept of the
app before the app are being develop.
Online Car Rental System

Registration

Login

Search Car

View Car
Information

User Reserved car

Give feedback
& inquiry

Logout

Figure 1: Use Case Diagram for User 10

2.3.4 Build Prototype

This our propose interface for the app of online car rental.

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2.3.5 Test Marketing

Test marketing is the final stage in new product development which is carried out prior to full-
scale launching of a new product. This stage is very important as this is when the company
decides to invest on full scale commercialization. The objectives are to gauge product viability
and to make improvements or corrections on product strategies and the marketing plan.
Figures below show our data of test marketing.

From the 42 respondents, 66.7% like our EZ Car Rental system and 97.6% would like
to recommend the application to their friends.

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3.0 CONCLUSION

In conclusion, the new product development process is very important to be conducted.

The process will provide a better understanding of the new product created by company. This
is because the new product introduced must capture the demands as well as to satisfy current
unmet needs of existing target market. The stages of the new product development, which are
research and development, product design and features, concept testing, build prototype and
test marketing are discussed and decided with a very deep understanding and reasoning of
why our EZ Car Rental must be in that way. After completing all the stages, we can conclude
that our EZ Car Rental application has a good feasibility and viability for us to commercialize
to the consumers.

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4.0 REFERENCES

Chand, S. (n.d.). Your Article Library. Retrieved from

http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/products/6-stage-of-classification-of-new-product-
development-by-a-company/22201

Claessens, M. (2016, September 18). Marketing Insider. Retrieved from https://marketing-

insider.eu/categories-of-new-products/

Polaris Marketing Research, Inc. (2010, May). Retrieved from

http://cdn2.hubspot.net/hub/58820/file-15746039-
htm/newsletters/other_research/mrp_0510_concept_testing.htm

qualtrics. (2017). Retrieved from https://www.qualtrics.com/market-research/concept-testing/

Rouse, M. (2017). SearchCIO. Retrieved from

http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/product-development-or-new-product-
development-NPD

Salleh, Z. (2017). New Product Development. In I. A. Wahab, Z. Z. Abidin, & H. L. Rahim,

Fundamentals of Technology Entrepreneurship (pp. 78-89). Kuala Lumpur: Dolphin
Press International Sdn Bhd.

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5.0 Appendices

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