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This study aims to focus on creating sales capability as part of new product development (NPD). The aim is to define generic requirements for building sales capability as a part of NPD and to propose a necessary process by defining key activities for sales readiness.

An inductive and qualitative research method was used to construct a sales capability creation process based on a current state analysis in seven companies.

The results indicate that the status of companies’ sales-related planning varies during the NPD, and the related activities are not systematically managed. Considering sales early is necessary to enable a smooth and cost-efficient start of sales, and to avoid unnecessary delays and problems in other functions. At the same time, the companies recognise the need for improvement.

This paper presents a potential process including systematic activities for creating sales capability in conjunction with product development, which is novel to the literature. The proposed process is applicable in aligning industrial company needs.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between supply chain management practices, logistics capabilities, logistics integration and competitive advantage of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in a developing country.

Using a structured questionnaire survey, cross-sectional data collected from 204 SMEs in Kampala – Uganda were analysed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using AMOS version 26 to validate the theorised relationships.

The study findings revealed that both supply chain management practices and logistics integration are positively and significantly associated with competitive advantage. Also, both supply chain management practices and logistics capabilities are positively and significantly associated with logistics integration. Additionally, the authors found that logistics integration partially mediates in the relationships between supply chain management practices and competitive advantage, and logistics capabilities and competitive advantage. Conclusively, the three independent variables collectively account for 11% variance in competitive advantage of SMEs.

Given the general observation that SMEs are fundamental to socio-economic development, yet resource constrained, this study uses Resource-based and dynamic capabilities theoretical perspectives to provide an empirical understanding of the supply chain and logistics resources and capabilities necessary for building competitive advantage of SMEs in the context of a developing economy.

Reverse logistics has been seen as a necessary cost of business, but more companies are seeing it as a core strategic activity. Every firm needs to find more efficicient ways of reclaiming, redistributing, and disposing returns. For a fast growing industry, however, it is difficult to focus on structuring internal processes for reverse logistics because its emphasis is always on time to market and growing sales. In order to capture the most updated trend in the field of reverse logistics, this paper describes best practices of reverse logistics in hi-tech industry and identifies barriers in implementing those practices. The focus areas of the benchmarking survey are outsourcing of the logistics function, organization of the logistics function, return management, and sustainability-green issue. Based on the survey results, we provide an insight for capturing these trends and leveraging them as a strategic core competency for this industry.

This study aims to offer novel insights on how industrial marketing might contribute to bringing innovations to market in the peculiar case of health care. This study aims at shedding first light on how the alignment between dissemination and exploitation activities might contribute to bringing to market innovations developed by public–private partnerships funded by the European Commission (EC).

The theoretical development comes from an inductive research design based on the 42-month pan-European H2020 research project NESTORE aimed at developing an integrated portfolio of innovations for the healthy aging of European citizens.

This study advances the theory and practice of industrial marketing in health care by conceptualizing an actionable method to align dissemination and exploitation activities within EC-funded projects, facilitating that innovations will go to market. The method is composed of five phases. First, an external analysis to define market opportunities and users’/stakeholders’ needs. Second, an internal analysis to identify the most promising exploitable outputs. Third, scenarios crystallization to define the most suitable scenarios (business models) to bring the selected exploitable outputs to market. Fourth, exploitation and dissemination alignment through the identification and involvement of the most relevant stakeholders. Fifth, scenario refinement and business plan.

This study is relevant because many EC-funded projects still fail to move innovations from labs to market, thus limiting the benefits for the European citizens and the competitiveness of Europe with respect to the USA and China. Although this relevance, past studies overlooked the peculiar context of EC-funded innovation projects, privileging pharmaceutical and biomedical companies. This study advance theory and practice of industrial marketing in health care.

The present article aims at rising stream of literature about intellectual capital in healthcare organizations, by exploring how knowledge-based activities are designed to promote innovation and create value. This process concerns not only buyers and sellers of industrial products/services but, more widely, larger networks of healthcare actors which include patients, payers and health institutions.

To answer the research question, we adopted a conceptual approach aimed at reaching overall comprehension of healthcare innovation mechanisms. We have tracked the pivotal extant studies for catching the roots and dynamics at the base of diffusion of healthcare innovation. This article demonstrates, based on previous literature and theoretical speculations, the contribution that innovative knowledge-based activities (e.g. market access approach) make to intellectual capital in healthcare organizations to promote innovation and create value.

The results show that three knowledge-based activities of the healthcare ecosystem shape the basis of the proposed conceptual framework. First, a value co-creation strategy to develop capabilities for each health stakeholder is intended as human capital. Second, the market access approach to promote innovation is reported to the relational capital. Third, a digital servitization strategy is referred to the structural capital.

This paper provides implications for the stream of literature about intellectual capital in healthcare organizations. It aims at exploring three knowledge-based activities as value co-creation, market access and digital servitization that respond to different intellectual capital levels components (human, relational, structural).

This article provides a conceptual framework based on the linkage of two fundamental streams of management studies, which correspond to innovation diffusion and intellectual capital management. This offers a more solid conceptualization for managing intellectual capital in healthcare organizations with respect to previous studies and creates value in the ecosystem.

This case study examines the new product development (NPD) process of digital information products (DIPs) and its critical success factors (CSFs) in a small-sized German enterprise.

A case study was conducted with a small firm focused on the development of DIPs; data were obtained through semi-structured interviews, direct observation and document analysis.

The firm uses an informal and cross-functional NPD process (idea generation, idea validation, product creation and product launch) in converting an idea into a sellable product. Peculiar aspects of each stage within the process as well as ten CSFs to NPD projects were verified.

Limitations are attributed to its qualitative nature, which does not allow generalizations, though careful attention was given to validity and reliability issues through the use of data source triangulation.

The paper provides a conceptual process that may benefit further initiatives for developing and launching DIPs, as well as a comprehensive list of CSFs for such projects.

This paper is the first one to schematize the NPD process and practices for DIPs, as well as key capabilities. It contributes to the NPD literature in discussing dynamic aspects that are typical to the firm analyzed and to others operating in a digital context. At the same time, it reinforces other traditional aspects that have become overlooked in digital business debates.

Firms frequently struggle with measuring the performance of their radical innovation activities. Due to the uncertainty and ambiguity involved, key performance indicators (KPIs) used for incremental innovation projects are often not useful in this context. The purpose of this paper is to explore suitable KPIs particularly useful for radical innovation projects.

This study first reviews commonly used measures for innovation projects, which is then followed by case-study evidence from three industry-leading international firms. This study includes 13 in-depth interviews with innovation managers and directors in these firms, providing insights on how they measure the progress and performance of radical innovation projects.

KPIs used commonly in incremental innovation showed lackluster results in the case firms and were problematic for radical innovation context. A key finding was that radical innovation project performance should be evaluated based on the process rather than on the expected outcome. Concurrently, based on the literature review and the cases, three sets of KPIs with 13 specific KPIs useful for radical innovation projects are proposed.

The paper addresses a core challenge in using established KPIs in a radical innovation context. The paper gathers and synthesizes a range of measurement points suitable for radical innovation projects and provides specific suggestions for appropriate metrics that innovation managers can use.

The economic shock posed by the current COVID-19 outbreak brought out a worldwide public health emergency with a close relationship between the industrial marketing practices, the health level of society and its economic development. The purpose of this study is to analyse the industrial dynamics in health care and their impact on economic growth and health status.

To empirically investigate the relationship between growth and health, the authors use a data set drawn from 29 selected Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries over the period 2000 and 2019. Using panel regressions, the authors investigate the impact of the health-care industry measured in terms of health status, health expenditure, sales on pharmaceutical products, the number of persons working in health care and the coverage by private health insurances. Fixed effect and random effect regressions are used to estimate this model.

Overall, the results are suggestive of a nexus between the industrial marketing dynamics of health-care context and economic growth – both interacting and improving each other. As the quality of the health-care market enhances, the economy grows richer and the health status of the population improves considerably.

To support health-care markets in OECD countries, health policymakers need to formulate a long-term industrial health policy that addresses all the social and individual determinants of health.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study to provide a better understanding of the relationship between health-care industrial dynamics and economic growth in OECD countries along different dimensions.

This study aims to analyse how multinational corporations (MNCs) organise value chain activities to penetrate new market segments. It contributes by expanding traditional decisions regarding the vertical fine-slicing of value chain activities (whether performed internally or externally) and the consideration of resource-sharing decisions (integration or separation) for each value chain function.

The authors draw on primary data collected from two case study firms operating in the large emerging Chinese market: Volvo Construction Equipment AB and Epiroc AB. In-depth cases illustrate how foreign MNCs expand into new market segments and simultaneously target both the lower-priced mid-market and the premium segments in the Chinese mining and construction industry.

The results reveal that product diversification creates challenges for managers who must oversee new (vertical) value chains, often simultaneously. Beyond geography and modes of governance, managers must decide whether to integrate or separate value chain activities for the new product lines. The study identifies four main strategic choices for firms to address this complexity, focusing on the decision to internalise or externalise (i.e. within or across organisational boundaries) and integrate or separate value chain activities between different product lines.

This study builds upon the internalisation theory and recent international business contributions that focus on value chain configurations to explain MNCs’ product diversification as a growth strategy in a host emerging market. It also sheds light on the choice of conducting new activities in-house or externally and elucidates firms’ managerial decisions to operationally integrate or separate individual value chain activities. The study provides insights into the drivers explaining managerial decisions to configure value chain activities across product lines and contributes to the growing body of literature on MNC activities in emerging economies by highlighting that product diversification impacts entry mode diversity and resource sharing across units.

The purpose of the paper is to investigate the marketing and communication activities carried out by small management consulting firms and how they relate to customers.

After the framing of the literature on the subject, the study is based on the results of a survey carried out through an online questionnaire. The sample under investigation is represented by 914 small consulting firms located in central Italy.

Results show that half of the sample carried out marketing and communication activities, mainly through the website and social media, while others participating in events as speakers at conferences. It also emerges that management consulting firms carry out activities aimed at maintaining relationship with customers even if they do not invest time in market research in order to find potential and new clients.

The study suggests that management consulting firms should adopt a systematic and strategic approach to communication and should develop a complete and integrated digital communication strategy, as well as to rethink the consulting business model.

There are no previous studies that provide insight into the everyday practice of marketing and communication of small management consulting services in today's dynamic and changing economic environment.