2003
Industrial companies' evaluation criteria in new product development gates
Publication
Publication
Journal of Product Innovation Management , Volume 20 - Issue 1 p. 22- 36
Abstract
This article presents the results of a study on the evaluation criteria that companies
use at several gates in the NPD process. The findings from 166 managers suggest
that companies use different criteria at different NPD evaluation gates. While such
criteria as technical feasibility, intuition and market potential are stressed in the
early-screening gates of the NPD process, a focus on product performance, quality,
and staying within the development budget are considered of paramount importance
after the product has been developed. During and after commercialization,
customer acceptance and satisfaction and unit sales are primary considerations.
In addition, based on the performance dimensions developed by Griffin and Page
(1993), we derive patterns of use of various evaluative dimensions at the NPD
gates. Our results show that while the market acceptance dimension permeates
evaluation at all the gates in the NPD process, the financial dimension is especially
important during the business analysis gate and after-market launch. The product
performance dimension figures strongly in the product and market testing gates.
The importance of our additional set of criteria (i.e., product uniqueness, market
potential, market chance, technical feasibility, and intuition) decreases as the NPD
process unfolds. Overall the above pattern of dimensions’ usage holds true for both
countries in which we collected our data, and across firms of different sizes, holding
different market share positions, with different NPD drivers, following different
innovation strategies, and developing different types of new products. The results
also are stable for respondents that differ in terms of expertise and functional
background.
The results of this study provide useful guidelines for project selection and
evaluation purposes and therefore can be helpful for effective investment decisionmaking
at gate-meetings and for project portfolio management. We elaborate on
these guidelines for product developers and marketers wishing to employ evaluation
criteria in their NPD gates, and we discuss directions for further research.
Additional Metadata | |
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doi.org/10.1111/1540-5885.201003, hdl.handle.net/1765/57191 | |
Journal of Product Innovation Management | |
Organisation | Erasmus Research Institute of Management |
Hart, S., Hultink, E. J., Tzokas, N., & Commandeur, H. (2003). Industrial companies' evaluation criteria in new product development gates. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 20(1), 22–36. doi:10.1111/1540-5885.201003 |