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Speed to the market is becoming a key competitive priority in developing countries’ environments even though lack of technology, poor skilled labour and under-developed infrastructure remain daunting challenges. The purpose of this paper is to examine the causes and relative importance of delay factors in the introduction of food products to the market in the era of time-based competition.

The study employed a case study approach in understanding the phenomenon in its natural settings and making sense of it through process and participants observations. Again, a two-stage approach (first, interviews and second, questionnaire) was used in collecting data from the respondents who work in a project team for a large food processing firm. The data was analysed using the relative importance index technique.

The results show that the most important causes of delays in new products introduction, especially in the food processing industry, are: high number of projects running concurrently; lack of project management process; lack of consistent project management structure; high workload on project team and delays caused by external laboratory.

This study sought to identify detailed delay factors in the introduction of new products with respect to the food processing industry and more importantly established the relative importance of these delay factors as a decision support system for managers in the food processing industry.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the correspondence between the stock market's immediate reactions to new product introduction announcements and those products' subsequent commercial performance.

The main study uses standard event study methodology.

The paper finds that the stock market reacts “incorrectly” to announcements of new product introductions more often than one would expect from a market that is assumed to be highly efficient.

The paper's findings raise questions about the appropriateness of using daily stock returns to assess the profitability of marketing actions with highly uncertain outcomes.

Event studies of stock prices have been a popular method to assess the profit impact of marketing actions in a timely manner; yet, there has been surprisingly little research addressing the stock market's ability to react immediately to firm actions in a manner consistent with how effective the actions actually turn out to be. The authors' intended contribution is to guide marketing researchers investigating determinants of firm profitability.

Given that the majority of firms are followers of pioneering firms into new, related product markets, managers of almost all firms can benefit from benchmarking their competitive responses to pioneering new product introductions. This paper examines the competitive responses of firms not only in terms of the time until their responding new product introduction, but also in terms of the firms’ preceding stages of competitive response: awareness, interest, and evaluation. For example, how long does – and should – it take a follower firm to become aware of a pioneering new product introduction? A general conceptual framework and basic methodology is proposed for firms to evaluate and benchmark their competitive responses. Follower firm responses to pioneering new low‐fat food product introductions in North America are examined and illustrate the opportunity for benchmarking firms’ competitive responses.

Retailers' new product acceptance in base of pyramid (BoP) markets is crucial to marketers in this segment. This paper seeks to develop propositions for research on factors that affect retailers in new product introduction. The propositions also aim to make a distinction between urban and rural BoP markets.

The paper provides a broad description of India's BoP market (one of the world's largest BoP markets) to better understand context. It uses literature from developed country context to BoP markets to arrive at research propositions for further research.

The key research propositions derived relate to exogenous and endogenous factors. Exogenous factors relate to store trading area, competitive environment, shopper characteristics and product diversity. The endogenous factors include store atmosphere, assortment and shelf space allocation, price and promotion. The differences across rural and urban BoP markets are highlighted for each proposition.

Understanding differences between rural and urban BoP retailers can help make crucial new product introduction decisions. Considering endogenous and exogenous factors that influence retailer acceptance decisions will make product introduction decisions successful.

BoP literature has been replete with research on marketers and products but less on retailing. This paper addresses that gap. In addition, very few papers make the distinction between urban and rural BoP markets and mostly across countries but not within a country. This paper places the distinction within the country. Finally, explaining how various factors influencing retailing differ in urban and rural contexts and developing propositions is a major original contribution of this paper.

The need for studying the effects of cannibalization and its importance has been established in the literature, especially, since an assessment of the expected cannibalization effect of a new product can help in deciding on suitable times for new product introduction and promotions. However, quantitative measures that can be easily monitored and interpreted are not commonly available.

This study uses parametric measures to help identify and investigate the effects of cannibalization. It proposes a predictive framework that may be used to investigate the effects of cannibalization. A case study, with real data from a consumer beverage company, illustrates the practical applicability of the model.

The parametric measures developed helped to identify the level of product cannibalization at the product, product group, family and brand levels in the portfolio.

Marketing strategists who can identify the victims of cannibalization in the product portfolio will be better prepared for the effects of cannibalization.

In the 1980s, quality was the competitive priority that won orders in the marketplace. More recently, time‐based competition has emerged as the winning strategy, especially in fast‐cycle industries. Being the first to introduce a product into the market can bring significant benefits like higher price premiums or greater market share. Conversely, delaying the introduction of new products can lead to fearful consequences such as lower market share, lower margins, or the loss of customer goodwill. This paper reports on the reasons for delays in the introduction of new products in the computer industry. The analysis of the data suggests that quality should be built into the new product development process as a first step to accelerate the market introduction. The use of quality function deployment is suggested as a useful tool for reengineering the new product development process.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the characteristics of low-volume manufacturing industries influence the product introduction process and factors which can facilitate that process in low-volume manufacturing industries.

A literature review and a multiple-case study were used to achieve the purpose of the paper. The multiple-case study was based on two product development projects in a low-volume manufacturing company.

The main identified characteristics of the product introduction process in low-volume manufacturing industries were a low number of prototypes, absence of conventional production ramp-up, reduced complexity of the process, failure to consider the manufacturability of the products due to an extensive focus on their functionality and increased complexity of resource allocation. It was determined that prior production of similar products could serve as a facilitator of the manufacturing process.

The main limitation of this study is that the identified characteristics and facilitating factors are confined to the internal variables of the studied company. A study of the role of external variables during the product introduction process such as suppliers and customers could be the subject of future studies.

This research will provide practitioners in low-volume manufacturing industries with general insight about the characteristics of the product introduction process and the aspects that should be considered during the process.

Whereas there is a significant body of work about product introduction process in high-volume manufacturing industries, the research on characteristics of the product introduction process in low-volume manufacturing industries is limited.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the gap in the literature as well as investigate how the combination of internal marketing or innovation investments with new product introductions influences alliance type choices. Most research on marketing–innovation resource allocation decisions has focused on trade-offs in internal investments such as advertising versus research and development. Absent from this discussion is whether firms offset a weakness internally by reaching outside the boundaries of the firm through alliances. As a result, managers lack a clear understanding of the potential for complementarity using internal–external approaches to a market.

This paper draws on the resource-based view of the firm, using a longitudinal secondary data set and a choice model.

The authors find that firms that internally emphasize either marketing or innovation maintain the same approach externally with respect to alliance type choices. Thus, efforts to complement internal marketing (innovation) resource investments with innovation (marketing) alliances are not seen. However, the interaction of new product introductions with internal resource investments does result in a complementary firm approach.

The authors bridge a gap in the resource investment literature by exploring how the internal decisions impact the external alliance choices. The authors draw on longitudinal data and show that the action of making the choice is important, as it impacts future resource decisions. The authors explore the interaction between new production introductions and internal firm investments on alliance type choice. Given that new product introductions are a key to longer-term firm success, examining these relationships enhances the managerial impact.

The purpose of this empirical paper is to determine the effects of line extension introductions on parent brand equity.

The paper uses a cross‐sectional sample of 318 supermarket brands. A system of equations is proposed and estimated using seemingly unrelated regression.

Brands benefit from line extension introductions, but only high equity brands benefit from innovation. Low equity brands benefit from the solo advertising of their new line extensions.

The results suggest that there are two routes for improving brand equity; high equity brands can introduce innovative products, while low equity parent brands may improve brand equity by supporting new line extensions with solo advertising.

The paper is important in identifying the effects of new product introduction and innovation on brand equity.

The purpose of this paper is to provide greater insights to managers seeking to time properly the launches of innovative new products (NPs) across multiple generations. This paper aims to address the rhythm matching problem by developing a typology and a conceptual framework of the interaction between a firm's technological readiness to launch NPs and a market's receptivity in influencing a firm's long‐term performance.

Based on the new product development (NPD) and diffusion of innovation literatures, the paper develops a model explicitly to address the rhythm matching problem by highlighting the interaction between a firm's technological readiness to launch new products and a market's receptivity in influencing a firm's long‐term performance. The logic of this model may be described as follows: long‐term performance is a function of matching: products to customer needs, marketing mix dynamics to customer segments and buying behavior dynamics, and logistics, supply chain management, and inventory to market dynamics and financial efficiency; uncertainty in: knowledge of needs, market segments and their dynamics, and market dynamics is all a function of time, as is financial efficiency. Therefore, a firm's long‐term performance is a function of these matches over time.

Deriving from the proposed model and typology, it was found that in independent rhythm windows, the management focus is on a single generation and each successive generation can be planned independently. In market‐imposed windows, firms aim at adapting their own NP readiness rhythm to the market receptivity rhythm. In firm‐imposed windows, firms have the initiative to drive the market receptivity rhythm. In dynamically resultant windows, everything is more complicated because firms' NP readiness rhythm and market receptivity rhythm influence each other.

The model and typology developed in this paper are a breakthrough result of synthesizing various traditions of NPD and diffusion of innovation research. It is believed that the paper provides a rich conceptual framework drawing together extant research on the development and introduction of new products. The framework is intended both to explicitly inform managers of the importance of rhythm matching as well as to the factors that influence such matching. It is also intended to provide a lens with which further research can be directed to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of resource utilization in NPD and the long‐term success of the firms.