Albert L. Page

An Interim Report on Measuring Product Development Success and Failure

This article represents findings of a PDMA task force studying measures of product development success and failure. This investigation sought to identify all currently used measures, organize them into categories of similar measures that perform roughly the same function, and contrast the measures used by academics and companies to evaluate new product development performance. The authors compared the measures used in over seventy-five published studies of new product development to those surveyed companies say they use. The concept of product development success has many dimensions and each may be measured in a variety of ways. Firms generally use about four measures from two different categories in determining product development success. Academics and managers tend to focus on rather different sets of product development success/failure measures. Academics tend to investigate product development performance at the firm level, whereas managers currently measure, and indicate that they want to understand more completely, individual product success.

ASSESSING NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PRACTICES AND PERFORMANCE: ESTABLISHING CRUCIAL NORMS

Abstract In 1968 and 1982 cross-sectional studies of the conduct and performance of new product development were reported, the wide-ranging results of which have been widely reproduced and cited as norms for product development. Since the more recent study, many changes in the practice and environment of product development have occured. Albert Page describes the findings of a new cross-sectional study, sponsored by PDMA, which reports on the current status of new product development and updates those commonly referred to norms. On the one hand, this article reports that the state of practce, covering both structure and process, has improved, although there is still substantial room for further improvement. On the other hand, the results for five different measures of firm and program performance indicate these practice improvements have not resulted in notable improvements in the overall performance of the new product development activity within the responding companies.

Product systems marketing

Abstract Today more industrial companies are turning to the marketing of systems to satisfy the more extended and complex needs of their customers. Yet there is little knowledge available to guide them in evaluating the merits of adopting the systems marketing approach. This article presents a marketing analysis of the systems strategy and its implications for potential adopters.

The adoption of national account marketing by industrial firms

Abstract National account marketing has been a common industrial marketing practice since after World War II. National account marketing means that special marketing procedures are followed in selling, servicing, and monitoring certain key customers considered important to the goal attainment selling company. The importance of the account may lie in the volume of goods purchased, the dollar value of the purchases, share of market controlled, prestige of the account, or any number of other factors thought to be critical to goal attainment of the selling firm.

Stratification in consumer behavior research: A re-examination

The role of the stratification concept in consumer behavior research is examined and compared to its sociological foundations. Misapplications of the concept in consumer research along with weaknesses in methodology, hypothesis formulation and criterion variable selection are identified and remedies suggested. Strengths and weaknesses of different stratification scales for consumer research are assessed and the key issues involved in stratification research are illustrated by reviewing the stream of stratification and consumer research in the area of banking behavior.

Redesigning product lines with conjoint analysis: A reply to Wittink

Albert Page and Harold Rosenbaum reply to Dick Wittink, noting some additional characteristics of the food processor market. They agree that least-squares regression is another option for analysis and that problems may be introduced by comparing across attributes with differing numbers of levels; however, they argue that other criticisms may lead to additional cost and complexity without necessarily increasing the validity of the results.

Formulating a strategic portfolio of profitable retail market segments for commercial banks

Abstract A profit contribution study of commercial bank retail customers reveals systematic relationships with family life cycle, social stratification, and relative income class. The analysis leads to the conclusion that a banks continued retail growth and profitability depend in a crucial way on its ability to attain a balanced portfolio of three key high profit market segments. To attain this mix, banks must intensify product development efforts oriented to the asset management needs of upscale customers during the later stages of the family life cycle. It is interesting to note that these three market segments are expected to attain the highest population growth rates in the decades ahead as the age distribution of the population changes.

Transfer more, benefit more? An institutional framework for understanding the use of interorganizationally and intraorganizationally transferred knowledge

Abstract Firms’ use of the interorganizational and intraorganizational transferred knowledge is critical for product innovation in emerging economies. Based on institutional theory, this research examines the moderating effects of firms’ institutional environments on the relationships between firms’ transferred knowledge and their product innovation. The empirical results supported the proposed research hypotheses including the proposition that firms’ macro-institutional environment positively moderates relationships between the transferred knowledge and firms’ product innovation. Comparing privately owned enterprises and state-owned enterprises, foreign-invested enterprises would benefit more from intraorgani-zational transferred knowledge and benefit less from interorganizational transferred knowledge.

A test of the share/price market planning relationship in one retail environment

Over the past few years two important approaches to marketing strategy planning have been developed. A key planning relationship in each approach is the relationship between prices and market share. The Boston Consulting Group suggests that market share leaders match the prices of their lowest priced competitors while the Profit Impact of Marketing Strategies study has found that share leaders have higher prices. Which is correct? This empirical study tests the direction of the share price relationship in one specific retail environment, namely gasoline retail markets. The results strongly indicate that the share leaders in gasoline retailing consistently have higher prices then their lower share competitors. The study represents the first time that marketing planning relationships such as that between share and price have been extended to retail operations from their more traditional areas of application in marketing by manufacturers.

Loan Terms and Loan Repayment Performance: The Experience with Minority Small Businesses

The purpose of this paper is to report the results of a study which examines the relationship between the structural characteristics of loans to minority small businesses and loan performance. The study represents an extension of research to the analysis of small business loan performance [2, 5, 7, 14]. As such it provides another perspective to understanding the performance of such loans by considering the relationships that exist between loan characteristics and loan performance. In particular, the finding regarding the relationship between the amount of the loan and loan performance provides important additional evidence relevant to a debate in the literature between Edelstein [5, 6] and Bates and Hester [3] about the effect of the loan size variable.