A decision-support system for evaluating sales prospects and launch strategies for new products

New products are important elements in the success of most industrial enterprises. But they are risky and costly. In this article, we briefly review methods that are used to evaluate the likely sales level for new industrial products prior to launch. Then, we report the results of a study of industrial product diffusion, focusing on those factors associated with successful market penetration. These results led to the development of a microcomputer based marketing decision support system (MDSS) that can be used to help plan the entry strategy for a new industrial product.