Critical success factors of new product development in Taiwan's electronics industry

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore critical success factors of new product development in Taiwan's electronics industry which uses the approach of re‐innovation.Design/methodology/approachFocus group research was conducted. In total 71 participants from Taiwan's electronics industry were allocated into eight different groups ranging from minimum eight to maximum ten participants in a group.FindingsSuggested critical success factors of re‐innovation include time reduction in development process, cost reduction in product manufacture, products with high levels of customization, relative advantage, or added value, efficiently internal coordination and external cooperation, appropriate product introduction timing, and less aggressive competitors responses.Research limitations/implicationsA main limitation of this study is that the field data were all from Taiwanese‐based companies in certain industries. Generalization could be increased by collecting data from other countries and industries.Practical implicationsFirms using the approach of re‐innovation should take into account various characteristics of different innovation types so as to adjust their approaches of new product development.Originality/valueThe first contribution of this study is to provide information regarding the critical success factors of product re‐innovation in Taiwan's electronics industry. Second, the knowledge of new product development can be added because of an increase in the understanding of re‐innovation in the Asia‐Pacific region which has received much less attention than North America and Europe by innovation researchers.