Global New Product Development

Abstract

In the age of ubiquitous internet bandwidth, the development of a global market, coupled with rapid development of what once were underdeveloped countries and regions has led to many companies thinking and acting globally. This phenomenon has brought many new challenging facets of globalization to the surface in today’s business world. These new challenges have to be managed effectively to succeed in the rapidly changing world. The areas of Technology Management and New Product Development have long been a significant area of interest for academic researchers and corporations, for fairly obvious reasons. New products are the key to continued profitable existence and growth for companies and exceptional versus ordinary technology management can be the difference between thriving and extinction. A perceived trend in new product development has become more prevalent in recent times; the trend of globalization of the development process. Stemming from efforts to develop better products faster, cheaper, and with greater market success, companies have looked to globalize their product development efforts. If a corporation is to start a global product development strategy, other more general issues in management related to management of technology in general must also be considered and understood to have a reasonable chance of success. This chapter will focus heavily on New Product Development in a global context while also addressing some larger issues related to Global Technology Management. Specifically this text will include (1) An overview of recent articles on Global New Product Development a framework to access the motivations and reasons to proceed on New Product Development Globalization Method as well as an assessment on the effectivity of its implementation; (2) an overview of articles on some aspects of Technology Management in a global context and a framework to evaluate addressing potential issues in this arena; (3) A review of a few product development cases at Xerox, a large multinational corporation who has globalized some of their product development efforts, and an evaluation of these case studies with the frameworks that have been created. The end result of this exercise will be an evaluation of current practice related to Global New Product development at Xerox, more specifically products with design responsibility residing at the Wilsonville, Oregon site, and identification of gaps between current practice and best practices identified through papers published in academia. Additionally, a discussion touching on the more generalized issues that can become relevant to global technology management in general will also be presented.