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In 2007 global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity totaled a record $4.38 trillion, up 21 percent from 2006. Despite current turbulence in the world financial markets, 44 percent of privately held businesses globally are planning to grow through acquisition in the next three years. Following a merger or an acquisition, a combined firm may need to streamline an inefficient product portfolio so as to increase revenues and profitability. The consequences of retaining inefficient portfolios can be more than internal competition and inadequate financial returns. This paper seeks to illustrate key processes, methods and the value of strategic marketing research and science in helping make critical decisions that reshape an inefficient portfolio of 12 pharmaceutical products, created as the result of a merger of two large, global pharmaceutical firms.

Using a case study, the paper posits that taking a customer‐centric, market‐driven view of the value of products in a portfolio almost always results in significant insight that helps streamlining. Applying relevant tools and techniques from the disciplines of strategic marketing, market research and marketing science crystallizes insight into objective criteria that can then be used to make informed and valid decisions.

Results illustrate the importance of customer‐centric, market‐driven constructs in influencing critical market outcomes, which, in turn, provide rational insight into structuring existing product portfolios. Product, customer and market drivers that drive product and portfolio performance are explicated and recommended for analysis and ongoing tracking. Results are presented in terms of altered customer behaviors, product and portfolio revenue and profitability.

The paper highlights the critical role of relying on the core elements of strategic marketing and research in solving one of the most common and important business issues of our time. Key themes are stressed through focusing on insights reiterating the role of core marketing principles such as differentiation, positioning and strategy simulations. When combined with the insights provided by comparable other business functions such as financial modeling and valuation, this can only result in smart business strategy.

This paper explores how two understudied characteristics of a firm's product portfolio, namely, aging of products and (non)innovativeness of products, affect firm survival. The influence of these product portfolio characteristics on organizational mortality can be observed both at the firm and at the industry levels. Paradoxically, the portfolio's influence at the firm and at the industry levels may go in opposite directions. Specifically, I predict that portfolios with aging products make their firms weaker competitors and survivors. However by weakening these firms, “aging” portfolios reduce competitive pressures at the industry level and, therefore, improve firm survival indirectly by changing industry vital rates. In contrast, firms with innovative product portfolios should be stronger survivors. At the same time, they are likely to intensify competition in the industry and, as a result, diminish survival chances of all firms, including those with innovative products. The analyses of all firms’ product portfolios in the worldwide optical disk drive industry, 1983–1999, support these predictions.

The purpose of this research is to determine how managers’ decisions to discontinue products may be affected by their cognitive and demographic characteristics. Research in product management and entrepreneurship has primarily focused on the introduction of innovations and the marketing of emerging and existing products in the marketplace. Considerably less research has focused on product elimination and how marketing managers decide to remove poorly performing products from a given product portfolio. Nevertheless, product elimination decisions are critical to maintaining business health and protecting firm profits, and are a commonly encountered decision for entrepreneurs and managers of existing products. This study empirically explores the role of factors that may affect a manager's decisiveness in eliminating poorly performing products from a product portfolio.

Using a simulated business environment, this study empirically explores the role of factors that may affect a manager’s decisiveness in eliminating poorly performing products from a product portfolio. Product portfolio decisions are presented to a sample of emerging managers using a computer simulation, and the impact of manager characteristics, namely, cognitive style, gender, academic profile and entrepreneurial intentions on product elimination decisiveness is examined using regression analysis.

The findings indicate dominant effects for cognitive style and academic profile in driving the decisiveness of product elimination decisions.

The findings highlight the importance of the academic profile and cognitive style of those entrusted with managing product portfolios, especially as is related to product elimination decisions.

The findings imply a need for determining the optimal fit of candidates for product portfolio management roles, based on factors such as cognitive style, academic performance and academic area of specialization.

Given the role of entrepreneurial enterprises in enabling social equity, this research highlights the need for entrepreneurial education focusing not only on product introduction but also product omission.

This research expands prior research findings on innovation, promotion and elimination of products by asking what happens at the end of a product’s life when the prospects for a product are no longer strong. The research shows that some managers are less decisive and therefore may be challenged when handling product portfolios with sub-performing products. The findings indicate cognitive and academic influences on product elimination indecisiveness and open new avenues for further examining similar influences in managerial decision-making. This line of work therefore encourages inquiry into the drivers of the important decision of product elimination.

The purpose of this paper is to create a benchmark and identify best practices for Project Portfolio Management (PPM) for both tangible product‐based and service product‐based development project portfolios.

A questionnaire was developed to gather data to compare the PPM methods used, PPM performance, PPM challenges, and resulting new product success measures in 60 Australian organisations in a diverse range of service and manufacturing industries.

The paper finds that PPM practices are shown to be very similar for service product development project portfolios and tangible product development project portfolios. New product success rates show strong correlation with measures of PPM performance and the use of some PPM methods is correlated with specific PPM performance outcomes.

The findings in this paper are based on a survey of a diverse sample of 60 Australian organisations. The results are strengthened by comparisons with similar North American research; however, they may not be representative of all environments. Research in other regions would further qualify the findings. As each organisation's PPM process is unique, case study methods are recommended for future studies to capture more of the complexity in the environment.

The paper shows that PPM practitioners and executives who make decisions about the development of tangible products and/or service products will benefit from the findings.

This paper extends the existing understanding of PPM practices to include service development project portfolios as well as tangible product development project portfolios and strengthens the links between PPM practices and outcomes.

This study aims to improve understanding of companies’ motives and concerns in relation to cooperation through a joint commercial product portfolio.

The qualitative research method was used to study 17 companies based on two case projects.

The joint commercial product portfolio is introduced as a new type of co-marketing. The possible business drivers, targeted benefits and perceived challenges of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in relation to cooperation through a joint commercial product portfolio are identified. The companies seem to be motivated by and concerned about similar issues that also apply to other forms of co-marketing.

The study consisted of two case projects in the same country and, thus, share fairly similar business environments and cultures. Therefore, the same results may not be obtained for a study that is conducted in a different location.

Managers of SMEs can benefit from the results of this study by improving their understanding of co-marketing opportunities through the creation of a joint commercial product portfolio with suitable companies. In addition, the results provide managers with insights into the challenges that should be considered when planning marketing cooperation.

The study provides new perspectives on the existing co-marketing literature by discussing the creation of a joint commercial product portfolio as a vehicle to support companies’ business objectives. The study contributes to the increasing business-to-business co-marketing literature by presenting the business drivers, targeted benefits and perceived challenges related to SMEs cooperation through a joint commercial product portfolio.

This research distinguishes between abstract brand concepts built through the development of diverse product portfolios (i.e. portfolio abstractness) and those built through establishing human-like images (i.e. image abstractness), and investigates the joint effect of the two types of brand abstractness on building brand equity.

The three studies presented use experimental design with participants in a laboratory setting and members of an online participant panel.

Three studies demonstrate that while building abstractness by expanding a brand’s product portfolio can generate favorable brand evaluations, this positive effect is marginal compared to when the brand is imbued with human-like characteristics. Furthermore, the favorable effects on brand equity because of abstractness associated with a human-like brand image are evident in protection from brand dilution in the face of negative publicity.

The findings suggest that a consideration of different forms of abstractness is key to unlocking the complexities of understanding customer-based brand equity.

This research shows that although building abstractness through a diversified product portfolio or a symbolic, human-like brand image can favorably impact customer-based brand equity (i.e. attitudes and responses to negative publicity), the former strategy has a marginal effect compared to the latter.

This is the first research to conceptualize brand abstractness as stemming from broad portfolios or from human-like brand images. Additionally, it provides a holistic understanding of how these two forms of abstractness jointly influence brand evaluations and responses to negative publicity.

The study aims to examine the characteristics of product portfolio on the price premium of an umbrella brand. Specifically, the study seeks to explore three aspects of a product portfolio: the presence of attribute compatibility, similarity, and portfolio size.

A total of 232 subjects participated in the 2 (with/without compatibility)×2 (product sets: high similarity/low similarity)×3 (portfolio size: small, medium and large). Results support the hypothesis about the three factors.

Experimental results show that subjects on average are willing to pay a 9.45 percent price premium for the brand with the attribute‐compatible portfolio. The effect of attribute‐compatibility is more obvious for a similar than a dissimilar portfolio. In addition, larger portfolios dilute the price premium.

The study first addresses the factor of attribute compatibility among a product portfolio. A product portfolio with attribute compatibility has features linking products together. For example, the “direct‐print” feature among Canon products allows its cameras to print directly on Canon printers. The study finds that such a feature increases a brand price premium by 9.45 percent.

The purpose of this paper is to assess a country’s export returns and return volatility and to demonstrate that such an approach is a relevant method to predict a country’s export earnings and risks. Also to suggest important policy implications for Korea’s trade in terms of diversifying its export structure of products and destinations.

The modern portfolio theory by Markowitz (1959) is applied to predict a country’s export earnings and risks. The import amount of a product, which includes aspects of both price and volume, is used as a measure of returns and return volatility and, as a result, the correlation matrix between 19 product groups covering almost all the export goods is calculated. The empirical analysis to show a strong causal relationship between expected returns and the return volatility of a country’s export portfolio and its real export earnings and risks is also made.

This study demonstrates that the portfolio approach can be a useful method to predict export returns. Also suggests that Korea needs to change its portfolio of both export products and destinations in order to maintain more stable growth of its trade and reduce its vulnerability to an external shock.

The empirical tests have many limitations because they are based on simple cross-sectional models.

The study shows that the modern portfolio approach to export by using prices and volume as a measure of variation in returns can predict how vulnerable a country’s export earnings is to economic shocks, and thus, provide a useful policy implication in the design of export structure and resource allocation.

This study provides a new idea to predict a country’s export earnings and risks by applying the export portfolio.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether alliance portfolio R&D intensity contributes to biopharmaceutical firms' number of new product approvals and whether alliance portfolio R&D intensity is more positively related to the number of new product approvals for pharmaceutical firms than for biotechnology firms.

The paper employs a random effects Poisson regression model using panel data of 821 firm year observations for 146 biopharmaceutical firms operating in the USA. The robustness of results is also checked with additional analysis, provided in an appendix.

The results of this study show that the R&D intensity of firms' alliance portfolios is positively related to their new product introductions. It is also found that alliance portfolio R&D intensity has a more positive impact on the pharmaceutical segment of the industry's new product introductions than those of the biotechnology segment.

The authors develop and test theory about how the combined effects of two dimensions of alliance portfolio configuration (size and relationship strength) positively impact new product development. The authors propose a two dimensional alliance portfolio configuration measure, alliance portfolio R&D intensity. They combine the number of R&D alliances relative to the total number of alliances in the portfolio with the differential strength of ties associated with resource commitments required to source information from upstream and downstream alliances.