
International Marketing 207
life-cycles. Second, technology ensures rapid product development to replace the obsolescence taking
place in the market. Firms that are considered market leaders have managed to stay ahead on the strength
of their continuous innovation; Apple Inc. is known for the iPod, the iPhone and now the iPad, and Sony
Corporation’s successes include the Walkman, the compact disk and the PlayStation.
New product development needs cross-functional integration among R&D, production and marketing
to ensure that new products are driven by customer needs and are easy to manufacture, development
costs do not escalate too high, and ...