In turbulent environments, the infused marketing function has become an essential and natural part in the firms’ new product development (NPD). Some scholars define NPD as the transformation of a market opportunity into a product as a result of the coupling of market assumptions with technological possibilities.
The purpose of this study is to explore the role of market orientation in NPD, with the specific focus on how market orientation is carried out in NPD and how it affects NPD. This study is built on a conceptual framework and a tool, both are formed from literature. The authors use the case study to conduct this research, and one company’s (Tylö’s) data is gathered through the semi-structured interview. Some findings are obtained from analysis: Firstly, market orientation contains two approaches, one is the market-driven approach and the other is the driving-market one, and firm could choose one of them according to the new product features.
Secondly, there are four areas in market orientation, for each approach, the specific content in each area is different. Thirdly, the four areas are identifying customers’ needs, collecting information, inter-functional coordination and taking action and they move on sequentially. In addition, two crucial factors-time and cost should be paid much attention in NPD.
Source: Halmstad University
Author: Hu, Hao | Xu, Chenke