Content area
Full Text
Today's rapid changes in markets and technologies require new practices for new product development.
Today's rapidlq changing marNets and dqnamic new technologies not only offer attractive opportunities, but also present challenging roadblocks for marketing and product managers in almost every industry. While marketers, consultants, and academics have developed a variety of processes and procedures to effectively manage the development and introduction of new products, the growing uncertainty and instability inherent in these rapidly changing markets have presented a series of complications that managers must proactively address. There is a growing need in most companies today to adapt to and manage change and innovation as managers attempt to successfully integrate cutting-edge technologies with customer needs.
In our recent study of a series of new product efforts at US WEST, the regional Bell telephone operating company, now a part of QWEST Communications, we identified five new product development (NPD) practices that have the potential to mitigate risk and manage uncertainty, while enhancing the likelihood of new product success. In order to bring to life the issues faced and solutions developed by managers who must deal daily with such challenges, we conducted 16 retrospective interviews with new product managers whose NPD projects we studied.
The Role of Uncertainty
Today's new product strategies must be developed and carried out within an environment of uncertainty caused by the very technology that leads to the rapid growth sought by many firms. There are three principal elements that characterize this market uncertainty. First, new and innovative technologies often make possible products that go beyond the needs customers can easily articulate. As such technologies emerge, the marketer, especially in technologically driven firms, must struggle to determine the appropriate target market and identify the customer need the technology can fulfill.
Second, managers are uncertain how new technologies can be translated into specific new products having the right attributes at a price the customer will be willing and able to pay. Third, it is difficult for managers to determine the resource levels at which new product research and development should be supported. The huge failure rate for new products attests to the fact that traditional business and marketing plans can only guess at sales projections for new-to-the-world products. Assessing the potential of new...