The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development

36.3. New Product Development Practices

This review summarizes new product development practices across all business units and highlights the practices used by the most successful business units.

Who are the most successful business units? We used the outcome measures from the survey to characterize those business units that were "the best." These most successful business units were defined in terms of their success within their industry, success with their new product development programs relative to their expectations, and performance in terms of market success (sales and profitability). These measures capture performance relative to their competitors, their own expectations, and in their customers' eyes (see Chapter 29). To be characterized as one of the most successful business units, they were:

• The most successful or in the top third in their industry for NPD success, and

• Above the mean for their new product program success, and

• Above the mean for market financial success from new products

Forty-three respondents (23.0 percent) met these criteria. A total of 144 respondents were categorized as "the rest" of the business units. Fourteen business units were not categorized because they left too many of the applicable questions blank.

36.3.1. Outcomes

How successful are our respondents? Overall success with new products has been fairly consistent since 1995 for PDMA Members (Hustad, 1996). Of those new products that are launched, success rates have improved very little, from ...