New product development practices in consumer versus business products organizations

Abstract

Most recent work in the area of new product development has been of a theoretically prescriptive basis, ignoring, to a large degree, the current state of affairs in US corporations. The study examines, on a comparative basis, consumer and business products organizations, practices being utilized to guide the development process and key factors influencing the success/failure of the process. Results from an empirical study reveal that: (1) there is no one best means to structure the process; (2) top management commitment to and support of the process is a critical factor; (3) knowledge of markets and customers remains elusive; and (4) more similarities than differences exist between the practices undertaken by and the factors influencing success/failure in consumer versus business products organizations.

User Involvement and Entrepreneurial Action

“…The idea that increased knowledge about users leads to better design is implicit in much of the writing on user involvement (Hanna et al, 1995;Leadbeater, 2006). While not everyone would subscribe to such a simple interpretation explicitly, it is often assumed that raising companies' awareness of methods and approaches for user involvement will help them to get closer to users, to learn more about them, and hence to produce more successful innovations.…”

“…By launching these methods and experimenting with them in companies, academics and practitioners aim to promote and enhance userinvolvement practice, and raise awareness among designers. Surveys and reviews (Bruseberg & McDonagh-Philp, 2002;Cassim, 2005;Goodman et al, 2006;Hanna, Ayers, Ridnour, & Gordon, 1995;Kujala, 2003) indicate that the available methods are often underutilized. Whether or not this results from a lack of awareness, however, is an open question.…”

Managing customer information and knowledge with social media in business-to-business companies

“…[45], [96], [35], [32]). For instance, generally speaking products produced by business-to-business organizations are more complex, the development of new products takes significantly more time, and the customers are large organizations instead of single persons, which is the case in consumer (business-to-consumer) product sector.…”

Criteria for Assessment/Selection of Innovative Projects

“…Literature related to the selection of screening of projects related to new product development is quite abundant, in terms of research reports (e.g., [1], [2], [4], [7], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [16], [17], [21], [22], [23], [24], [25], [32], [34], [36], [37], [40]), examples of industrial practices (e.g., [3], [45], [27], [39], [46]), and guidelines for entrepreneurs ([19], [33]). This literature provide a host of semi-quantitative criteria that may be used, whereas Stagg et.al.…”