ARTICLES

Do you have too many products in development?

by | Jul 3, 2018 | Manufacturing & Distribution

The main reason good product ideas fail is that they get stuck between conception and development, often in processes that inhibit breakthrough innovation, according to a new study by CGT magazine and Sopheon Corp.

Nearly 60 percent of the study’s respondents said that development resources were stretched too thin because of too many other projects under development.

Product DevelopmentOnly one in five ideas was truly innovative, with the rest being product revisions, line extensions or promotional ideas and packaging changes, respondents said.

The average company gets 25 percent of its revenues from products introduced within the past five years. But only half of those products achieve profit goals because of a lack of product differentiation and poor market analysis, each a part of early-stage development.

Respondents came from global companies with annual revenues of $300 million or more. Markets included food, apparel, consumer goods and electronics.

A majority of respondents said there was a lack of coordination between short-term product development activities and long-term growth strategies.

These included:

  • Information gaps that undercut new product investments
  • Inhibitors of effective product portfolio management
  • Deficiencies in post-launch performance measurement practices