Understanding Innovation Strategies for New Product Development

Abstract

The current literature indicates a high rate of New Product Development (NDP) failure. Many of them believe that the main reason behind such failures is the way the NPD process is managed. Though the scientific literature employing the term is not structurally consistent enough, it has attained a widely spread implementation-based response in the shape of national and regional innovation systems, as well as other innovation fostering initiatives. Innovation reflecting the perspective of companies on change creates value through change. In today’s business world, there are true opportunities for the ones that can manage the process of change well. It includes a lack of clear project definition, too much focus on internal processes and procedures ignoring customer needs and requirements, lack of communication and knowledge transfer among various people within the organization, etc. The current study provides an analytical tool in the form of a two dimensional matrix that maps various stages of the NPD process to the existing innovation strategies. This analytical tool can be used by business analysts to assess the degree of innovativeness of various activities involved in NPD process, as a basis for enhancing the effectiveness of the overall product development initiatives.