Making Trade‐Offs in the New Product Development Process: A German/US Comparison

Abstract

Using a conjoint analysis experiment, Ashok Gupta, Klaus Brockhoff and Ursula Weisenfeld present how R&D, marketing, and manufacturing managers in Germany make trade‐offs among three critical variables in the new product (NPD) process: development schedule, development costs, and product performance. The findings are compared with a similar study of US firms. This comparison underscores the basic problem: US managers do not emphasize product development speed to the same extent as do German managers.

Understanding antecedents of new product development speed: A meta‐analysis

“…However, some researchers and practitioners argue that there are potential trade-offs between NPD speed and other NPD performance indicators, such as speed-quality (Calantone and Di Benedetto, 2000;Harter et al, 2000), speed-cost (Gupta et al, 1992), and speed-success (Griffin, 2002). For example, argue that a strict deadline might make NPD teams slip key processes, trim performance specifications, and/or reduce technological content, which typically undermine product quality.…”

“…Lambert and Slater (1999) contend that fast NPD may make managers focus on schedules at the expense of more resources and product performance. However, the empirical studies on the NPD speed-product performance trade-off turn out mixed results (Adams-Bigelow and Griffin, 2005;Griffin, 2002;Gupta et al, 1992;Swink et al, 2006). There are several explanations for these conflicting findings.…”

National culture and R&D and marketing integration mechanisms in new product development: A cross-cultural study between Singapore and New Zealand

“…Provision of corporate commitment, in terms of sending clear messages to the organization about the role and importance of NPD and the importance of functional integration, are vital (Bonner, Ruekert, & Walker, 2002;Gupta, Brockhoff, & Weisenfeld, 1992;Song & Parry, 1997).…”

Application of analytic network process and two-dimensional matrix evaluating decision for design strategy

“…With proper performance measurement, the enterprise operator may understand the realization degree of its goal; moreover, proper performance measurement can be taken as the basis for adjustment of input factors (Fan & Huang, 2014). In literature of new product development, most scholars hold that cost and quality are performance indicators influencing project success (Clark & Fujimoto, 1991;Gupta, Brockhoff, & Weisenfeld, 1992;Kessler & Chakrabarti, 1996;Rosenthal & Tatikonda, 1993;Terwiesch, Loch, & Niederkofler, 1998). According to Hopkins (1980), when evaluating new product development performance, it is necessary to follow the 5 indicators, namely, the financial evaluation, the target evaluation, the percentage of new products in overall sales, the success rate of new products in the market, and the overall satisfaction of new product development.…”