Improving Marketing's Contribution to New Product Development

Introduction

NPD - New Project Development

Identify Customer Need

that new product failure rates are still high1 due to a flawed understanding of consumer preferences and market needs

Marketing Department

Knowledge about specific capabilities that improve the marketing department’s contribution to NP

Relationship between marketing capabilities and innovation performance

Then whether these capabilities help the marketing department strengthen its position and influence within the NPD process

First identifies marketing capabilities that are relevant for NPD

Evidence that firms with strong marketing departments are more successful with their new products.

Conceptual Model

Marketing in the NPD Process

Are to identify and understand customer needs and to assess the market potential of new product ideas

Conducts marketing research because managers expect the resulting information to minimize uncertainty when making important decisions in areas such as NPD

Knowledge-Based Marketing Capabilities

Innovation Performance (IP)

Technical skills (TS)

Knowledge about marketing and geenral management (MK)

Marketing'sInfluence on NP

Innovartion Performance (IP)

Business Performance (BP)

Decision Influence

Initiated NPD projects (MI2)

Provide knowledge and skills that connect the customer to productdesign,functionalities,andqualityissues.

help reduce the number of products that fail to satisfy market needs

to support management in detailed business analyses concerning decisions such as the selection of the most promising new product ideas

Model Results

The study assesses the relationship between the three marketing capabilities and the two marketing influence measures (MI1 and MI2).

Marketing Capabilities and Innovation Performance

The Impact of Marketing Capabilities on the Marketing Department’s Influence on NPD

The Mediating Role of Marketing’s D

Innovation Performance and Business Performance

The quality of marketing research and the capability to translate customer needs into technical product specifications positively contribute to both marketing influence measures

These capabilities enable the marketing department to influence NPD by initiating NPD projects

Having CEOs with marketing backgroundspositively affects the influence of marketing on NPD decision making

The most important marketing capability is Marketing Research, which has a significant positive effect on innovation performance

Decision influence of MK has a strong positive significant effect on innovation performance

There is no direct effect of marketing’s TSkills on innovation performance

To fully understand the magnitude of marketing capabilities’ contribution to innovation performance and the role of the marketing department’s influence, the indirect effects are computed to assess the type of mediation.

Innovation performance significantly improves overall business performance

The fit between the generic strategy and its implementation is more important than the chosen strategy