Strategies for new product development

In spite of much evidence of its success, many managers hesitate to establish a policy for new product development. Their indecision often arises from two reasons: they fear that a defined strategy may discourage innovation and they are uncertain how to formulate a new product strategy. The author of this article discredits the former notion and, in reply to the latter, proposes the guidelines for developing such a statement. As new products are essential to the continued success of most firms, the strategy must exist and must be operant if the firm is to avoid wasted time, effort, and money as well as employee confusion and discouragement.     

Private labels and new product development

This paper provides a positive theory of private labels in new product development when a non-integrated distribution channel is faced with demand uncertainty. We consider a regular marketing environment in which a manufacturer endowed with a branded product seeks to design a new product to resolve its retailer’s mis-targeting problem and to optimally screen consumers. Assuming that only linear pricing schemes are available and that the retailer learns the state of demand earlier than the manufacturer does, we show that the presence of a private label always improves channel efficiency. Moreover, a private label is more likely to prevail when the existing branded product is a premium item.

Identifying new product development best practice

New product development (NPD) practitioners are keen to benchmark NPD practices because identifying any practice that is able to more efficiently and/or effectively deliver a new product could represent the difference between success and failure. A common purpose is therefore to identify NPD best practices with the expectation that companies will manifest and sustain these to augment their NPD efforts. To help in identifying such practices, we present a framework developed from prior benchmarking studies, a Delphi methodology with leading experts, and a survey involving over 300 NPD practitioners. The uniqueness of the framework lies in its ability to distinguish NPD practice across seven dimensions: Strategy, Research, Commercialization, Process, Project Climate, Company Culture, and Metrics/Performance Measurement. The framework is also unique in that across each dimension, poor NPD practices are listed as a starting point from which to improve, alongside best practices to which companies should aspire. To further assist in continuous improvement, an audit tool is derived from the framework, suggesting investigative questions that practitioners can ask to evaluate their company's NPD efforts. We conclude with general observations about NPD practice as the continued search for NPD best practice endures.     

加工贸易推动高新技术发展

最新的统计资料显示,2004年1月份,我国外贸出口357.2亿元,其中加工贸易出口190.2亿元,占比53.2％,充分反映了加工贸易在我国对外出口中发挥的作用。 数字是最好的说明,自1979年至2003年,我国加工贸易年均增速达26.9％,比同期外贸平均增速高12个百分点,2003年,我国加工贸易进出口额为4048亿美元,占全国进出口总额的48％。其中,加工贸易出口2419亿美元,占出口总额的55％。目前加工贸易涉及到我国绝大部分产业,在带动国内经济增长、促进区域经济繁荣、扩大出口、推动利用外资、引进先进技术和科学管理、增加就业等方面发挥了积极作用。在我国国民经济中的地位举足轻重。 在最近结束的“全国加工贸易研讨会”上,国务院副总理吴仪强调:要认真贯彻党的十六届三中全会精神,准确把握加工贸易发展的机遇和有利条件,进一步完善政策,创新管理方式,在保持数量增长的同时,切实把工作重点转移到提高加工贸易的质量和效益上来,及时引导加工贸易转型升级。 吴仪指出,加工贸易必须进行转型升级,扩大高附加值产品出口,全面提高出口竞争力,形成高新技术产品出口拉动机电产品出口增长,机电产品出口拉动全国外贸出口增长的新局面。 广东省是我国加工贸易最发达的省份,其中深圳市的加工贸易出口更是荣获连续11年全国大中城市排     

Familiarity and competence diversity in new product development teams: Effects on new product performance

When developing new products, most firms use cross-functional teams, but research on the effect of functional diversity on new product performance returns heterogeneous results. We propose a measure of competence diversity that is more comprehensive than the common functional diversity proxy. Empirical findings, based on a survey of 142 product and sales managers, support the improved predictive validity of our scale. We further observe a mediating effect of the instrumental use of information in the competence diversity–new product performance relationship. Finally, we discuss the moderating effect of familiarity among team members on the relationship between competence diversity and the instrumental use of information. All authors contributed equally to this article and are listed in random order.     

Fair trade and global cognitive orientation: a focus on Spanish fair trade consumers

In the past few years, there has been an increase in the ‘ethical consumer’, characterized by more reflexive values like solidarity, social responsibility, multiculturalism and ecology. This idea has found support in the appearance and development of proposals like fair trade, along with others, such as responsible consumption, the recycling business or sustainable development. In a parallel way, also during the past few years, various analysts have pointed out that the phenomenon of globalization is changing not only the aspect of the world but also our way of perceiving it, which is progressively becoming a ‘global orientation’. In the framework of these two tendencies, this paper examines the extent to which ‘global orientation’ is also a characteristic of consumers of fair trade products. The paper presents a two‐phase exploratory study. The first phase, of a quantitative nature, showed the greater global orientation of Spanish consumers of fair trade products, and it obtained a typology of them. This typology showed, however, that not all the clusters of consumers of fair trade products have a high global orientation, which reveals that the relationship between this dimension and the consumption of fair trade products is not a direct, straightforward one. The subsequent qualitative study examined the components of this global orientation in each of the three clusters where the consumption of fair trade products was the highest. The results showed that the purchase of fair trade products is influenced by the ‘global orientation’ of the consumer, although other factors, such as a sense of social responsibility and trust in international non‐governmental organizations, can condition this influence.     

广交会:品牌效应铸就辉煌

新年伊始,笔者就第95届广交会的筹备情况采访了中国机电产品进出口商会展览部刘永强副处长,据介绍,琶洲展馆经过第94届试运行后,本届将要全面投入使用。第95届广交会将如期在琶洲展馆和流花路展馆两地分两期同时举办,本届广交会展览毛面积54万平方米,展览净面积24.3万平方米,展位总体规模为27000个(含两期户外展场     

金融创新视域下农产品贸易的发展格局与高质量发展对策研究

中国作为农业大国,在农产品贸易方面取得了一定的发展,现已成为世界农业贸易大国。中国农产品贸易极大缓解了国内农产品剩余压力,增加了国内农民的经济收入,促进了中国农村地区的建设和发展。但是在整个发展过程中,仍然存在金融支持力度不够、金融创新不足等问题,这些问题严重制约了中国农产品贸易的发展。从金融创新视域入手,分析了中国农产品贸易的发展格局,研究了当前中国农产品贸易存在的问题,最后提出针对性对策,以期在一定程度上帮助提高中国农产品贸易金融创新力度,促进中国农产品贸易的健康发展。     

Consumers' response to other consumers' participation in new product development

In this paper, we investigate how consumers react to information that the brand has involved other consumers in the development of its new product. More specifically, we investigate how the participation of other consumers in either the ideation, where consumers come up with product ideas, or selection, where consumers select which out of many products the brand should produce and market, impacts on consumers' evaluations of the product and perceptions of the brand. Drawing from the literatures on brand schema and congruity, we hypothesize that by way of its effects on perceived brand uniqueness and brand attribution, consumer participation in new product ideation (selection) impacts more favorably on product and brand ratings when the product is incongruent (congruent) with the brand. An experimental study with 386 consumers supports the hypotheses.     

广交会:中国外贸逆风飞扬

亚运前夕的羊城广州,呈现出别具一格的魅力.夜幕低垂时,美丽的珠江和江边高耸的建筑物,被五彩的霓虹灯点缀得愈加让人沉醉.与这夜景一样有吸引力的,自然还有每年两届在这里举行的广交会.在很多外贸人眼里,广州不啻是一座"命运之城",每年两次,他们如朝觐般从全国各地涌向这里.而后危机时代的第108届广交会,更如同珠江边炫目的灯火,让人倍感扑朔迷离.     

An investigation of the black-box supplier integration in new product development

This research examines black-box supplier integration in new product development (NPD). A model and several hypotheses are proposed to study the relationship between product task characteristics (importance and complexity), supplier integration, and product performance. Data from 136 U.S. high-tech firms were used to test the hypotheses. Results suggest that assessing the importance and complexity of NPD tasks is critical to the implementation of supplier integration innovation strategy. Firms are likely to perform NPD tasks that are related to firms' core competencies in-house. They tend to externalize complex tasks to suppliers in order to utilize suppliers' resources and to increase NPD speed. The black-box supplier integration influences the speed to market. However, it is more effective on speed to market when technology uncertainty is low than when technology uncertainty is high.     

Dimensions of success in new product development: An exploratory investigation

As a key element in survival and sustaining growth, the constant development and re‐development of products has been the subject of many academic and consulting group studies. The specific focus of these studies has often been to identify and describe those factors which determine the outcome of new product developments; the critical success factors in NPD. In order to fulfill their objectives, the studies have focused on many aspects of the management of new product development programmes in companies, and attempted to relate them to a number of alternative outcomes. This has called for the measurement of “success” itself. Unfortunately, there is very little consensus amongst the studies regarding how best to operationalize “success”, and researchers have employed a variety of measures, focused on different levels of analysis, sought data from different sources and used different data collection methods. This paper examines the performance measures used in several major NPD studies and shows how success “measures” have been treated as financial and non‐financial. In addition, attention is drawn to the problems inherent in the different definitions of success. Finally, using data from an empirical survey, the relationship between financial and non‐financial outcomes is examined.     

Justice in triad: Revisiting supplier involvement in new product development

Recognizing the importance of involving suppliers in the new product development (NPD) process, extensive studies have examined this issue at a buyer–supplier dyadic level. However, how supplier involvement leads to better NPD performance is not clearly explained. Additionally, extending the dyadic relationships to triadic relationships and addressing how to manage the two competing suppliers with fair conduct remains unexplored. To answer these questions, this study developed a conceptual model theorizing the role of supplier involvement, information sharing, and justice in the NPD process within a buyer–supplier–supplier triadic relationship. Based on survey data collected from 200 U.S. firms, Structural Equation Modeling is used to test the hypothesis. The results first confirmed the criticality of involving both primary and secondary suppliers during NPD. Second, the positive effect of triadic supplier involvement on innovation performance is fully mediated by information sharing. Finally, this study explored the different roles of procedural justice and distributive justice; the results confirmed that procedural justice acts as a moderator for the relationship between triadic supplier involvement and information sharing, whereas distributive justice moderates the effect between information sharing and innovation performance. Our findings contribute to the literature of triadic supplier involvement-new product development and relationship management. Accordingly, these findings highlight key implications for managers and policymakers.     

Managing supplier involvement in new product development: a portfolio approach

Supplier involvement in new product development projects has become an increasingly popular method for improving project effectiveness (product costs and quality) and project efficiency (development costs and time). One of the key issues in managing this involvement is determining which type of involvement a manufacturer should have with the various suppliers that may be engaged simultaneously in a development project. In this article, a Supplier Involvement Portfolio is introduced to distinguish four types of supplier involvement in development projects. Subsequently, suitable supplier–manufacturer interfaces for the four types of involvement are defined in terms of the direction of information flow, the communication media used, the amount of communication, the topics discussed and the functions involved.     

试论服务贸易在国际贸易中的发展趋势

随着产品生产、销售的进一步全球化,资本也更加国际化,服务也将进一步全球化。先进的信息技术的发展与应用也必将进一步对服务贸易的发展带来巨大的深刻的影响,国际服务贸易的发展与国际物资贸易的发展相辅相成,在技术和全球化力量的推动下,国际服务贸易出现了新的发展趋势。