Competitive approaches to new product development: A comparison of successful organizations in an unstable economic environment

The purpose of this paper is to provide practitioners of management with a sense of how collaborative team integration processes and new product development (NPD) processes were required in order to be reasonably successful in the current economic recession.

The four relatively large Pittsburgh‐based general service and/or manufacturing‐oriented companies, most with global operations and reach capabilities, were selected and reviewed for the principles of the strategic, financial, informational, and operational viewpoints.

Even conservative companies found that more radical approaches to NPD, such as product newness and uncertainty in new product innovation/production, may remove, not increase, barriers to incremental and/or radical manufacturability. This is especially true in firms that make proper use of the managerial connectivity provided by proper use of limited resources, which are enhanced by the timeliness of good strategies.

The roles of uncertainty, supplier influences, team integration processes, as well as technology, may act as change agents, especially under the current economic recession. These factors may result in leveling the playing field for incremental and radical innovators as they integrate processes associated with NPD.

The executive teams involved recognized the need for more radical product offerings by turning their focus to meeting customer needs instead of making risky investments. Through successful product implementation, the companies studied found stability in a very turbulent financial and service‐oriented marketplace.