Managing the search for new product concepts: a strategic approach

Abstract The authors point out that there is little in the academic literature about the way ideas for new products emerge and how the emergence is managed. They have identified the main top management problem as the strategic one of achieving the right balance between resources put into new product search and those put into current business operations. To obtain more information on good and bad practice in this area they have investigated how a specially selected sample of small to medium‐sized Canadian technological companies actually carry out new product search. The research method was to ascertain how far corporate goals, organization structures and corporate values affected the effectiveness of new product search. Unstructured interviews were conducted with senior staff in the companies, during which information was sought about company goals, innovation strategy, internal relationships and how these impinged on the genesis of 35 projects. The authors found an important corporate goal spurring innovation was growth (or survival), to be achieved by using new products to dominate their markets. R&D was oriented to achieving a technical edge, though not necessarily a radical breakthrough in market driven ways. Few had effective formal strategic plans for new product search. On the whole, top managements emphasized the importance of individual initiative and commitment to get results and the necessity of open communication throughout the organization. Overall, this research reveals once more that any organization that wishes to pursue a strategy of product innovation has to build a climate which explicitly favours that strategy. Corporate strategy, itself, has a major influence on that climate. New product search requires resources and a place in the strategic plan but the extent to which it can be formalized is limited. It must be possible for new ideas, wherever generated, to emerge and gather momentum informally.