Key factors in increasing speed to market and improving new product success rates

Competition is fierce today. Businesses are under extreme pressure to innovate and to do so quickly. If they are too slow bringing a new product to market, or they make a mistake along the way, they could be overtaken by faster moving competitors. But what factors improve new product development success ? In a previous study, the authors interviewed 15 senior technical professionals involved in new product development. They used a benchcasing approach by sending each manager three in-depth cases and then asking each to identify the critical success factors. They identified 10 factors. The purpose of this study is to test their model in a larger sample of managers from a wider cross section of technology-based companies. By studying the practices of 95 successful and unsuccessful new product projects, we validated only some of the past findings, not all of them. We found several factors, not only speed development, can improve new product success rates. These factors include having a long-term view of product development, having a stable project vision, and following a rigorous new product development (NPD) process. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.