Workman (1993): Marketing’s limited role in new product development in one computer systems firm
17 important questions on Workman (1993): Marketing’s limited role in new product development in one computer systems firm
What is the main purpose (twofold) of the paper by Workman (1993)?
- Realistic constraints on marketing’s role in NPD in a high-tech firm
- The ways people in marketing respond to these arrangements and seek to influence product development decisions
What kind of process is NPD and which two aspects are of primary importance?
- NPD is an iterative process
- Social interaction & political dynamics are primary important
On which research question is the paper by Workman (1993) focussing?
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Which gap in the literature does Workman (1993) wants to fill with his paper?
Which two methods (focus group, interviews, surveys, experiments, observations, etc.) were used by Workman (1993)?
What were the results from the interviews with managers in high-tech firms?
- Marketing had a minor or non-existent role in new product development decisions in high-tech firms
- This role was taken by engineering managers or managers with technical backgrounds, and the marketing department was being assigned the role of selling the products and develop and support customer applications for the product
Which 6 stages (0 - 5) can be distinguished in the phase review process of Zytek?
- Stage 0: Strategy and Requirements
- Stage 1: Planning and Preliminary Design
- Stage 2: Implementation and Design
- Stage 3: Qualification
- Stage 4: Production, Sales and Service
- Stage 5: Product Retirement
In which three phases of the development process do the marketing groups provide the most information?
- Review process
- Annual long range plans
- Quarterly sales forecasts
In which three phases of the development process do the marketing groups provide the most information?
- Review process
- Annual long range plans
- Quarterly sales forecasts
How can the role of marketing in Zytek's NPD process be described?
- The NPD process is dominated by engineering and marketing really doesn’t have a large role in it.
- The job of marketing is to develop marketing programs and sales strategies for the products from engineering
What is the problem in the high-tech engineering based organisations?
What are the three impediments (belemmeringen) that prevented marketing from having direct control over product development decisions?
- Engineering-driven culture
- This culture support engineering's control and not listening to marketing and market research
- Organisational culture
- The engineers are actually doing marketing tasks within Zytek, profit and losses in engineering most imporant
- Intense time-to-market pressures
- Lots of time pressure, engineers call customers themselves to get direct feedback
What are the reasons Zytek's engineers are not using market research and marketing in the NPD processes?
- Customers usually do not know what they want
- Customers just extrapolate from current concepts and ideas they are familiar with, and usually do not ask for a radical innovative product
Marketing:
- Marketing people do not have the same level of technical expertise and competence as engineers do, which makes it hard to communicate together
What are the reasons Zytek's engineers are not using market research and marketing in the NPD processes?
- Customers usually do not know what they want
- Customers just extrapolate from current concepts and ideas they are familiar with, and usually do not ask for a radical innovative product
Marketing:
- Marketing people do not have the same level of technical expertise and competence as engineers do, which makes it hard to communicate together
What are the three mechanisms by which marketing influences product development (in general)?
- Informal networks
- Credibility is very important, marketing needs to understand the products and technology
- Strategic coalitions
- Coalitions are built to push through changes that engineering were resisting
- Completing the products
- Mareketing undertakes the development of software and hardware for applications or turn into external partners. Gaps in product line are identified by marketing als sales
What is the main conclusion of the paper by Workman (1993)?
- Several impediments (belemmeringen) at a high tech firm prevented marketing groups from directly influencing NPD decisions
- However, marketing groups did exert influence over product decisions, through indirect and non-traditional ways
What are three managerial implications of the paper by Workman (1993)?
- It may not always be appropriate for marketing to be the dominant coalition in the firm.
- In rapidly changing markets, it may not be possible to use traditional market research methods to determine which products to develop.
- A flexible, organic organisational structure may be most appropriate in the developmental growth stages, Workman argues for a contingency view of the relationship between the environment and organisational culture.
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