COMPUTER software developers, PRODUCT life cycle, MARKETING, and CASE studies

Prototyping, a technique often employed by software developers, has been primarily used for usability studies. We discuss in this paper, through case studies, our experience in the use of prototyping during various phases of the product life cycle, including planning, testing, marketing, and field support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DATABASE marketing, BUSINESS planning, and METHODOLOGY

The article addresses how Netherlands-based Randstand Holding used technologies to build an integrated marketing operations platform. The company institutionalized four success factors: propagation of marketing and service fulfillment methodologies, systematization of new service-fulfillment methodologies, rapid integration of newly acquired firms and rapid delivery of services and integrated solutions to new markets.

PRODUCT management, INDUSTRIAL design, RAPID prototyping, MARKETING channels, PRODUCT design, COMPETITIVE advantage in business, and MANAGEMENT science research

We examine, in a strategic setting, the broad issue of how retail channel structures--retail monopoly versus retail duopoly--impact a manufacturer's optimal new product design, both in terms of engineering design specifications as well as manufacturer and retailer profits. Our strategic framework enables manufacturers in specific contexts to anticipate the reactions of the retailers and competitive manufacturers to new designs in terms of the retail and wholesale pricing and to understand how different channel structures and channel strategies (such as an exclusive channel strategy) impact the engineering design of the new product, conditional on consumer preference distributions and competitor product attributes. Based on a simple numerical and a power tool design example, we illustrate how the insight from the framework translates to design guidelines; specifically, understanding which designs are optimal under differing channel structure conditions, and which design variables need precise targeting given their profit sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MARKETING, COMMERCIAL products, RAPID prototyping, NEW product development, PRODUCT management, and INDUSTRIAL research

For a major manufacturer of heating and cooling systems for large buildings, under increasing pressure to produce new product components, I developed a marketing-decision-support model of its process for selecting and developing new products that was comprehensive, objective, and dynamic. This approach is particularly suited for firms that feel the timing (introduction date) of new products significantly affects their sales potential. The firm has relied on this model and its expansions for over 25 years. Marketing-decision-support systems generally utilize a technical structure for dealing with a complex real-world problem. The technical structure is generally provided by a skilled modeler, the reality by experienced line managers dealing with the problem area. This interaction is a critical element in determining the success of real-world marketing-decision-support projects. The modeler must make sure the line managers feel intellectual ownership of the support system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NEW product development, PRODUCT differentiation, RAPID prototyping, MARKETING, PROFITABILITY, and TECHNOLOGY transfer

A review of the literature reveals that the relationship between development speed and new product profitability is not as strong and straightforward as conventional wisdom suggests. A number of studies show positive results, others show mixed results, and some present no evidence of a relationship. In other words, the valence of the link between development speed and new product profitability is unclear at this time. Therefore, this study investigates whether or not speeding new products to market has positive or negative effects on new product profitability. Prior research shows that product innovativeness influences both development speed and new product profitability. This raises the question of whether increasing speed is equally successful in improving profitability across new products that differ in their degree of innovativeness. Therefore, this study also investigates the moderating effect of product innovativeness on the relationship between development speed and new product profitability. The results from a survey-based study of 233 manufacturers of industrial products in the Netherlands reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between development speed and new product profitability. The findings also show that the optimal point is different for two new product types—product improvements and line additions—that vary in their innovativeness. These results provide an onset for the development of a decision tool that helps managers to determine how much to spend on accelerating the development of individual new products and how they should allocate that spending across products in their new product portfolio. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NEW product development, PRODUCT management, RAPID prototyping, MARKETING, TECHNOLOGICAL innovations, and COMMERCIAL products

Within the last decade, the link between launch strategies and new product performance has been widely investigated. However, the relationship between resource configurations and launch strategies has received little attention. This study endeavors to fill that void by examining the relationships between resource configurations and launch strategy selections. In addition, this study investigates the moderating effects of market growth and competitiveness on the relationship between resources and launch strategies. Drawing on contingency theory and strategic studies, this study proposes that resource contingencies affect changes in launch strategies. This study also suggests that market characteristics play a contingent role in the relationships between the configurations of resources and launch strategy choices. Based on extensive studies reporting on market characteristics and their links to strategies, this study proposes that two market characteristics—market growth and competitiveness—are relevant for launch strategy decision making. Taiwan's integrated circuit (IC) design industry has been used as the analytical sample, as it has been identified as a promising sector for new product development. Based on the result of investigating 90 firms, four resource configurations are identified: (1) strategic and organizational abilities; (2) technological capabilities; (3) societal assets and goodwill; and (4) physical assets. Furthermore, two different launch strategies— innovative and product advantage and cost oriented—also are discovered. The results from a seemingly unrelated regression model reveal that technological capabilities and societal assets and goodwill contribute to the variation in the firms' choices of launch strategies. This study further conducted the simple slope analysis to observe the effect of the technological capabilities on the innovative and product advantage strategy under different levels of the market growth rate. The results interestingly showed that firms with technological capabilities demonstrated different degree of tendencies in employing this strategy in alignment with various market growth rates. The finding sheds some lights on the moderating role market characteristics play on the relationships between resource configurations and launch strategy selections. Academic implications and suggestions for practitioners also are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NEW product development, COMMERCIAL products, RAPID prototyping, PRODUCT management, INDUSTRIAL research, and MARKETING

The article presents communicational and analytical models of new product diffusion. The models explain how advertising affects new product adopters, the stages of effects, what adopter groups should be targeted, what should be the optimal content of new product advertising. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BUSINESS failures, HIGH technology industries, RAPID prototyping, MARKETING, HIGH technology, and BUSINESS enterprises

This ankle reports the findings of a 1985-1986 study of success and failure determinants for new industrial products that had recently reached commercialization. In particular, the paper seeks to identify underlying factors for success and to test whether perceived success and failure factors vary with new product "experience" levels and/or with the degree of innovation in the company's new product program. The paper concludes that companies with more innovative and/or high-tech new product programs have significantly different success and failure factors at work than their less innovative and/or lower technology counterparts, and that across a sample of companies from many industries, wide variety of situation-specific success and failure variables need to be addressed by industrial marketers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

NEW product development, MARKETING, RAPID prototyping, COMMERCIAL products, PRODUCT management, and INDUSTRIAL research

The article presents information on the article "Customer Knowledge Development: Antecedents and Impact on New Product Performance," Ashwin W. Joshi and Sanjay Sharma, which was published in vol. 68, No. 4, 2004 issues of the "Journal of Marketing." Customer knowledge development (CKD) is essential for new product success, but there is much variation in how firms engage in this endeavor. The cause for variation in CKD stems from not all firms meeting three essential organizational actions: access to resources, strategic flexibility, and management of project members' motivation. To achieve these, the authors purport that firms must provide resource slack, must develop cross-functional new product development teams, and must champion the organizational goal of product leadership, respectively. To test their model, a survey methodology was undertaken with marketing managers of divisions of the top 1,000 Canadian manufacturing firms as the respondents. The authors' model further suggested that three project characteristics moderate the impact of the three organizational actions on CKD.

DESIGN services, INFORMATION & communication technologies, TECHNOLOGICAL innovations, MARKETING, INNOVATIONS in business, and DESIGN

The rapid evolution of information and communications technologies (ICT) has changed the way in which companies innovate and generate value for their customers. As a key function within innovation, design has also evolved in order to better support companies in dealing with the pace and complexity of technological, economic and societal change. Particularly, while design core principles of human centredness, collaboration and use of prototypes has remained the same over time, the way in which they are put into practice has adapted to the innovation challenges of the time. In this article, we describe how design practices related to human centredness, collaborativeness and prototyping are (and have been) executed across three eras: the industrial era, the service era and the digital era. Based on such evolution and on the current strengths of design, we explore complementarities and possible synergies with the marketing function to enable companies to succeed in innovating in the digital era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SIZE of business enterprises, INTERNET marketing, MARKETING, RAPID prototyping, and INDUSTRIAL management

Due to their common role as suppliers, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are especially challenged by today's turbulent business conditions. In order to meet this challenge, short-term Internet-based enterprise co-operations are regarded as an appropriate way to enhance the competitive strength of SMEs. Hence, the Institute of Machine Tools and Industrial Management (IWB) operates three so-called competence networks for engineering (www.engineering-net.de), rapid prototyping (www.rp-net.de) and manufacturing (www.produktionsnetz.de) services. For the purpose of an applied research project, more than 80 participating SME suppliers were included in these specialised virtual markets, which are based on the core competencies of the co-operating SMEs. Additionally, an Internet platform (www.virtueller-markt.de) is used to enable customers to configure their specific cyber chains via the above-mentioned competence networks. The present paper depicts how to establish and operate competence networks as well as how to configure cyber chains via these virtual markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INDUSTRIAL research, COMMERCIAL products, PRODUCT management, RAPID prototyping, RESEARCH institutes, NEW product development, BUSINESS research, MARKETING, and COMMERCIALIZATION

The creation of start-up firms is an important method of commercializing new technologies arising from R&D at universities and other research institutions. Most research into start-ups presumes that these firms develop products or services. However, start-ups may operate through markets for technology by selling or licensing rights to use their technology to other firms – typically established firms – who develop and sell new products or services based on the technology. In this study of 57 public start-up firms created to commercialize the results of university research, we find evidence that (1) operating through markets for technology is a common approach to commercialization, (2) start-ups that operate in markets for technology can be effectively distinguished in practice from start-ups operating through product markets, and (3) there are substantive differences in the business activities of firms depending on whether they operate through product markets or markets for technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]