市场营销外文翻译IEEETRANSACTIONS ON ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT, VOL. EM-34, NO. 3, AUGUST 1987Defining the New Product StrategyROBERT G. COOPERAbstract—New products are critical to the growth and survival of most corporations. The new product strategy is the master plan that guides the product innovation efforts of the firm, and links new product development to the corporate plan. This article looks first at what a product innovation strategy is, its role in the corporation, and why an innovation strategy is essential to an effective new product program. Next, the article focuses on the development of a new product strategy, beginning with objectives and moving to arena selection. A matrix approach to arena definition and selection is used. Empirical data from research by the author is employed in the model to prioritize new product arenas.INTRODUCTIONNEW products are central to the growth and prosperity ofthe modern corporation. Increasingly, progressive managementsrecognize that a new product or technology strategyshould be an explicit and central element of the corporatestrategy. This article is about new productstrategy at the corporate level—about the need for a newproduct strategy, and about defining and developing such astrategy.THE IMPORTANCE OF A NEW PRODUCT STRATEGYNew product development and technology bear an integralrelationship to a company's strategic thinking by helping todefine the range of that company's choices . For manycompanies, new products and technologies have become theleading edge of corporate strategy, opening up new market andnew business opportunities. The rapid growth of countlessfirms in office-of-the-future, bioengineering, microelectronics,and robotics is evidence of the growth potential of awell conceived new product strategy. Similarly, many oftoday's corporate giants, such as Xerox, IBM, Polaroid, andTexas Instruments, were fledgling companies only decadesago, but became great because of new product choices madeby management in earlier years.The companies that are most likely to succeed in thedevelopment and launch of new products are those firmswhich implement a company specific approach, driven bycorporate objectives and strategies, with a well-defined newproduct strategy at its core. These are some of the conclusionsof a study of business practices by Booz-Allenand Hamilton. There were other recommendations as well, but a productinnovation strategy ranks high on the list of the keys tosuccess.Some firms do develop such strategies. For example,product innovation charters were described by Crawford in hisstudy of 125 firms. He notes that firms are now beginningto pull all the multifunctional elements of a new productstrategy together in one document, which specifies the types ofmarkets, products, technologies, and orientation the firm willpursue with its new product program.PROBLEMIn spite o f the importance of new products, management canfind little help from the traditional literature in the formulationof a new product strategy. Few guidelines have beendeveloped to assist the manager in the choice of areas and thedirection for the new product program. That is, thereexist few conceptual frameworks or proven methodologies forformulating a new product strategy. Moreover, littleempirical research has been undertaken to determine thecomponents and results of firms' new product programs: thatis, how companies directly or indirectly choose new marketsand areas of technology, and organize and focus their R&Defforts in different ways.Although there are many strategy development models inuse today, most deal with resource allocation and strategydevelopment for the firm's existing business units and existingproduct lines. For example, various portfolio models havebeen developed, essentially variations of the Boston ConsultingGroup model—cash cows, stars, dogs, and wildcats. While these portfolio or resource allocation models maysuggest new areas for product development, these modelswere developed principally to deal with products or businessesthat the company already possesses. Similarly, the PIMSmodel, another popular strategy development aid, looks atalternate strategies and their impact on profitability, but againlargely for existingbusinesses in the company. Inshort, these strategy models deal with what is rather than withwhat might be. What is lacking in these approaches is asystematic procedure for generating and choosing new strategicoptions, including new products and new businesses.THE PRODUCT INNOVATION CHARTERIn a business context, strategy has been defined as "theschemes whereby a firm's resources and advantages aremanaged (deployed) in order to surprise and surpass competitorsor to exploit opportunities". More specifically,strategic change is defined as a realignment of the firm'sproduct/market environnent". Strategy is closely tied toproductand market specification. Corey identifies marketselection and product delineation as the two key dimensions ofcorporate strategy.Product innovation strategy, while closely related to corporatestrategy, tends to be more specific. In recent years, theterm "product innovation charter"—or PIC for short—hasbeen used. The PIC charts the entire strategy for a firm'snew product program. It is the essential link between theproduct development program and the firm's corporate strategy.The PIC has two key elements:The PIC specifies the objectives of the game, the role thatproduct innovation will play in helping the firm achieveits corporate objectives. It answers the question: wheredo new products and product innovation fit in thecompany's overall plan? This role then is translated intospecific objectives for the new product program. Statementssuch as "By 1990, 30 percent of our corporatesales will come from new products—products that we willdevelop and launch in the next five years " are typicalobjectives found in the PIC.The PIC specifies the arenas in which the game will beplayed. That is, it defines the types of markets, marketapplications, technologies, and products that the newproduct program will focus on. These arenas provide afocus to the firm's product development program.WHYHAVE A PRODUCTINNOVATION CHARTER AT ALL?Developing a PIC is hard work. It involves many people,especially top management. Why, then, go to all the effort?Most of us can probably name countless firms that do notappear to have a master plan for their new product program.How did they get by?Doing Business without an innovation CharterRunning an innovation program without a PIC like runninga war without a master military strategy. There's no rudder,there's no direction, and often, we don't end up where we'dlike to be.A new product program without a PIC will inevitably leadto a number of ad hoc decisions made independently of eachother. New product and R&D projects are initiated solely ontheir own merits, with little regard to their fit into the granderscheme. The result is that the firm finds itself in unrelated orunwanted markets, products, and technologies.Objectives: The Link to Corporate StrategyWhat types of direction does a PIC give a firm's newproduct program? First, the objectives of a PIC tie the productdevelopment effort tightly to the firm's corporate strategy.New product development, so often taken for granted,becomes a central part of the corporate strategy, a key plank inthe company's overall strategic platform.The question of spending commitment is dealt with bydefining the role and objectives of the new product program.Too often, the R&D or new product budget is easy prey inhard economic times. In some firms, R&D is viewed as softmoney—a luxury. But with product innovation as a centralfacet of the firm's corporate strategy, with the role andobjectives of product innovation firmly established, cuttingthis budget becomes less arbitrary. There is continuity to theresource commitment to new products.The Arenas: Guiding the Game PlanThe second facet of the PIC, the definition of arenas, iscritical to guiding and focusing the new product efforts (seeFig. 1). The first step in the new product process is ideageneration. But where does one search for new product ideas?Unless the arenas are defined, the result is a scatter gun searcheffort, undirected, unfocused, and ineffective!A second key step in the new product process is ideascreening. The first criterion for this early GO/KILL decisionis: "Does the proposed product fall within thecompany'smandate for its new product program?" This usuallytranslates into: is this the kind of market, product, andtechnology that we as a company have decided is fair game forus? Without a definition of fair game—arenas—good luck intrying to make an effective screening decision!The definition of arenas also guides resource and manpowerplanning. If certain markets are designated top priority arenas,then the firm can acquire resources, skills, and knowledge tobe better able to attack those markets. Similarly, if certaintechnologies are singled out as arenas, the firm can hire andacquire resources to bolster its abilities in those fields.Resource building doesn't happen overnight. One can't buy asalesforce on a moment's notice; and one can't acquire acritical mass of key researchers or engineers in a certaintechnology at the local supermarket. Putting the right people,resources, and skills in place takes both lead time and adirection, hence the need for the definition of arenas.Where's the Evidence?The argument for a PIC, although logical, appears somewhatacademic. One can't help but think about all thosecompanies that have succeeded without a grand strategyforproduct innovation. Then where's the evidence in support of aPIC? There isn't much, unfortunately. One reason is that nottoo many studies have investigated the role and impact of aninnovation strategy. Most of the business research into productinnovation has focused on the individual product project as theunit of analysis—for example, on what makes a new product asuccess—rather than on the company's entire new productprogram.The studies that have looked at firms' new productstrategies have a clear and consistent message: new productstrategies at the firm level are critical to success, and somestrategies clearly work better than others.Booz-Allen and Hamilton's study of new product practicesin corporations found that "successful companiesare more committed to growth through new productsdeveloped internally"; and that "they are more likelyto have a strategic plan that includes a certain portion ofgrowth from new products." The authors of this study goon to explain why having a new product strategy was tiedto success:A new product strategy links the new product process tocompany objectives, and provides focus for idea/conceptgeneration and for establishing appropriate screening criteria.The outcome of this strategy analysis is a set of strategic roles,used not to generate specific new product ideas, but to helpidentify markets for which new products will be developed.These market opportunities provide the set of product andmarket requirements from which new product ideas aregenerated. In addition, strategic roles provide guidelines fornew product performance measurement criteria. Performancethresholds tied to strategic roles provide a more precise meansof screening new product ideas.The PIMS studies (profit impact of market strategy)considered new product strategies, but in only a peripheralway. These studies looked at why certainbusiness units were more profitable than others, andattempted to link profitability to the market strategyelected. R&D spending and product quality level weretwo of many strategy variables considered in thesestudies, and both were found to be closely connected toprofitability (although detractors of the studies argueabout direction of causality).Nystrom and Edvardsson studied a number of industrialproduct firms, and identified how various new productstrategies were tied to performance. Strategiesemphasizing synergistic use of technology, a responsiveR&D organization, and an externally oriented R&Deffort were generally more successful. The study waslimited to only a handful of strategy dimensions, andR&D strategy may be different from new productstrategy.Nonetheless, the message comes through thatnew product strategy and performance are closely linked.Our own studies looked at the performance impact ofproduct innovation strategies in 120 firm. Thisstudy is one of the few investigations undertaken to datethat considers a large number of strategy dimensions, andhow strategy was tied to performance in a large numberof firms. The overriding conclusion was that productinnovation strategy and performance were stronglylinked. The types of markets, products, and technologiesthat firms elected, and the orientation and direction oftheir product innovation programs had a pronouncedimpact on the program's success and profitability. Strategyreally does count!Evidence for Selecting the Right ArenasOur investigation provided much more than a strong hintthat strategy pays off. The study also yielded insights into theingredients of a successful innovation strategy: the types ofobjectives that are reasonable and measurable; and criteriauseful in the selection of arenas—the kinds of products,markets, and technologies that successful firms elect. Here aresome of the more important conclusions, which we use later inthe article in the selection of arenas:A number of strategy factors were found to impact on thenew product performance of a companies. These factorsfit into one of two categories: either they described thetype of new product arenas the firm had chosen; or theycaptured the basis of how the firm would compete.Factors that captured the basis of competition portrayedthe orientation and commitment to the new productprogram. They included factors such as technologicalaggressiveness and sophistication, market orientation,program focus, R&D spending, and the like—usefulguides to how a new product program should be orientedand managed.Factors that described the choice of arenas constituted thesecond category of factors that impacted upon programperformance. These could be further subcategorized intofactors that portrayed:1) The attractiveness of the arena (for example, marketneed, growth and size, technological possibilities inthe arena, etc.);2) The strength or ability of the firm to exploit thearena (for example, the fit or synergy between thefirm's resources and the new product arena).In subsequent analysis, wewere able to put weights onthese different factors—how important is each factor inthe "success equation."These factors and their weightsare shown in Table I. We use Table I to provide the keycriteria and weights for the selection of the right arenas.The reader is cautioned, however, that these weights arederived from one study only, and serve as a guide orstarting point to arena selection.DEVELOPING AN INNOVATION CHARTERFew can deny the utility of having a product innovationcharter to guide the firm's new product efforts. But how doesone go about developing such a charter? The remainder of thearticle tackles the difficult task of molding the PIC. A numberof familiar concepts—business definition schemes and portfoliostrategy models—form the basis of this development. Butthese models have been integrated and modified in a novel apply to new product opportunities, rather than for businesses; further, we have incorporated from our research to help quantify the select of a new productarenas.Setting ObjectivesDefining objectives for a product development program isessential; most of us accept that premise. Yet our strategystudy revealed that many firms actually lacked written andmeasurable objectives for their innovation programs.What types of objectives should be included in an innovationcharter? First, the objectives should be measurable, hencequantifiable. Second, they should tie the new product programto the total corporate strategy. Finally, they must give the newproduct team a sense of purpose and help them makedecisions. In deciding upon a reasonable set of new productprogram objectives, consider some of the following types.Role ObjectivesOne type of new product objective focuses on the role thatthe new product effort will play in achieving corporateobjectives. Examples include:The percentage of company sales in year 5 that will bderived from new products introduced in that five yearperiod. (Five years is a commonly accepted time spanover which to count a product as "new") Alternatively,one can speak of absolute sales (dollars in year 5 fromnew products) rather than relative sales or percents.The percentage of corporate profits (gross, contribution,or net) in year 5 that will be derived from new productsintroduced in that five year span. Again absolute dollarscould be used instead of relative profits.Alternatively, these sales and profits objectives can beexpressed as a percentage of corporate growth. Forexample: 70 percent of growth in company sales over thenext five years will come from new products to beintroduced in this period.定义“新产品策略”罗伯特G·库珀摘要：新产品对于大多公司的成长和生存至关重要。