The winning new product strategy: market or technology driven?

The determination of which new product strategy to be adopted by the company can be made after proper microenvironment and macro-environment analysis were conducted. Macro-environment analysis looked at external factors that might have impact on the company well being. Micro-environment analysis examines the company's internal resources strength and weakness. Coupled these analyses together, the management should be able to define the new product strategy driver for the company. This strategy driver was to be included inside the new product development (NPD) strategic plan so that the NPD team could use it as a boundary condition in defining new product ideas. The paper describes a study on the pattern of adoption of new product strategy among companies that were successful in their new product innovation efforts. The variables included in defining these patterns were company size and types of new product innovations (radical, platform, incremental innovations). The results of this study indicate that majority of the companies adopted dual strategy driver of market and technology. A small number of the companies adopted pure technology driven strategy. These "pure technology driven strategy" companies were successful in gaining market acceptance on their new products through their unique characteristics or abilities.