Profitable research in a marketing oriented business

Abstract

It is hardly a generation ago since scientific research began to come into general use, at least in the larger companies, as a means of enhancing profits. Many of us will have actually seen it grow from small beginnings in our own businesses, or will at least remember those who did. It probably started tentatively in the face of many doubts and difficulties, but when its benefits, in the form of new products, were clearly seen, it was encouraged to grow. Then, as the years went by, it became in many cases the Juggernaut which seemed to have the power to keep rolling under its own momentum; and now, for the last decade, we have seen a spate of literature designed to show us how to steer it and control its speed. It tended to run away because almost all the judgements about its size were subjective and often emotion-laden opinions. So, to counter-balance them, control is being sought through the introduction of more objective criteria. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a few of the ways in which a multi-product marketing oriented business has set about trying to control the resource of scientific research as a means to success. This control falls into three categories: (1) the size of the research department; (2) the portfolio of research projects; (3) the efficiency of the research work done in the department.