NPD Success: Does Generic Mean Guaranteed? More Than You’d Think
In innovation ( the truly disruptive type ) success are often 20yrs in the making but not for NPD breakthroughs. This mindset ( true disruption vs. breakthroughs ) is often an intense debate with NPD efforts often focusing on innovation efforts where decisions made in new product launch efforts often require choosing launch decision options consistent with already-made launch choices and not that of the inconsistency situations often presented in innovation activities.
This can be expertly seen via the seminal work In Search Of Generic Launch Strategies For New Products where more than 600 firms were investigated in their efforts to deal with more than 1000 product introductions where almost 60% of the efforts succeeded and more than 41% failed and more than anything where we see appropriate pricing tactics which led to appropriate launch time implementations where offensive improvement launches focusing on improvements on current products were injected into markets with few competitors so as to erect competitive barriers. In these cases technology based ( in IP protection environments ) completely new products early in their product life cycles were able to establish a foothold and thus via broad product assortments, distribution channels using new brand names, meant lower distribution expenditures, and high-price skimming strategies to create average successes with product performance and financial goals met 1st over market acceptance goals
Further, a market-driven and less-innovative addition to existing lines for defensive purposes mentality, later in the product life cycle where many competitors already are present, it was these launches that received the lowest success ratings across nearly all of the performance criteria and something not often seen or accepted in the ( disruptive ) innovation models that many of us are familiar with. It is therefore that possibly, market-driven new-to-the-world projects are more successful with, lower price and a penetration / predatory pricing strategy rather than a high-priced, skimming system often employed by long range 20yr to develop disruptive innovation models.
In the separation and clear understanding of ( disruptive ) innovation and ( proactive ) new product development mindsets are some of the most important factors in understanding how firms who are able to consistently outperform those that mix these two efforts and toolsets thus using the correct magnifying glass for the right time based involvement is a key factor in successful efforts in these areas.