Blackwell Reference Online

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New product development, or NPD, “is the process that transforms technical ideas or market needs and opportunities into a new product that is launched onto the market” ( Walsh et al., 1992: 16 ). New products can make a profound contribution to competitiveness and this is particularly acute in an era of accelerating technological change, general shortening of the product life cycle , and increasingly intense competition. Fox et al. (1988) identify key drivers for new product development as being the market, technology, process, speed to market, learning, and cost. The most common representation of the NPD process is as a series of decision stages or activities ( Kotler, 2003 ). Cooper and Kleinschmidt (1986) identify 13 stages of the NPD: 1 screening of new product ideas; 2 preliminary market assessment; 3 preliminary technical assessment; 4 detailed market study/market research; 5 business/financial analysis; 6 physical product development; 7 in‐house product testing; 8 customer tests of product; 9 test market/trial sell; 10 trial production; 11 pre‐commercialization business activities; 12 production start‐up; and 13 market launch. However, the traditional sequential model of NPD has been criticized for ignoring the interactions that occur between the stages and the interactions between different departments as well as with external agencies, such as customers ... log in or subscribe to read full text