Dominic Wilson

Collaboration in new technology based product markets

The surge of enthusiastic interest in inter-organisational collaboration, especially in technology-intensive sectors, over the last decade has tended to mask the longer-term trends towards increased co-operation. The paper uses recent empirical research by the authors to discuss these trends and to examine some of the significant problems involved in the management of collaborations. We conclude that collaboration is an evolutionary process in which management skills of learning, mutual adaptation and accommodation can be more important to the eventual success of a collaboration than rigid adherence to an ab initio schedule of targets and objectives. Collaborative product development may be more costly, slower, less efficient and more difficult to manage than independent product development — but our research also suggests that, where successfully managed, the benefits can substantially outweigh these problems.

Competitive marketing strategy in a volatile environment: theory, practice and research priorities

The competitive strategy literature seems to offer two principal approaches to the problems of developing strategy in volatile environments. In this paper, these approaches are labelled as the formal and informal approaches. More recent research into managerial cognition provides promising possibilities for integrating formal and informal approaches to understanding strategy development in volatile conditions. Exploratory research by the author has shown that, in practice and in contrast to much of the strategic marketing literature, the response of organizations in volatile environments depends fundamentally on how the managers involved perceive their environment, that managerial perception can vary considerably between (and even within) rival organizations facing ostensibly similar environments, that the effectiveness of an organizations strategy can depend crucially on these managerial perceptions or paradigms and that it may be more realistic to regard competitive strategy as an organizations respon...

Using Information Technology Effectively: A Study of Marketing Installations

The use of information technology (IT) in marketing is clearly on the increase, with numerous studies proclaiming its benefits. Yet as usage increases, reports of the potential difficulties and barriers to using IT effectively and productively for marketing have also emerged. Against this background, we report one aspect of a major research programme examining the impact of IT on the marketing function: the factors associated with the effective implementation of IT. It is concluded that, while it is possible to identify a number of issues linked to the effective adoption of marketing IT applications, many of these issues can be ambiguous when examined in specific instances, and the complexity of contingent circumstances surrounding IT adoption means that broad-based prescriptions for success should be treated with caution. While much of the previous work in this area has focussed on surveys of senior managers, what is needed is more qualitative case-based research accessing a wider range of sources.

The role of IT in the reshaping of marketing

There would appear to be a view in common currency that IT is revolutionizing marketing, offering the possibilities of enhanced operational efficiency, the facilitation of the development of innovative products and services as well as the potential for reconfiguring marketing in the organization. Addresses the manner in which IT has affected and may significantly affect marketing by references to an empirical study of the existing and projected impact of IT on marketing activities, as well as analysing the factors which are likely to facilitate or impede the process. IT can be the handmaiden to the erosion of marketing as a major organizational function, with many of the traditional customer oriented activities being more widely diffused throughout the organization. On the other hand, it may be that marketing retains its position by adopting the role of guardian of the customer orientation, taking responsibility for defining the form and content of information that is an acceptable basis for organizational discourse.

Collaborative strategy in new product development — risks and rewards

It is often argued that the volatility of competitive environments can make an independent approach to new product development (NPD) impracticable, time-consuming and costly. Therefore, organizations are increasingly recommended to develop new products and services collaboratively through alliances, for example, in R&D, marketing or production. Discussion and research have tended to focus on the benefits of such collaborative strategies and have tended to under-estimate the problems and costs involved. There are also unresolved issues in the collaboration literature which raise important questions about the operational and strategic benefits claimed for collaborative new product development (CNPD). This paper addresses the issues surrounding the costs of collaboration by reporting recent empirical research in UK technology markets aimed at examining the risks and rewards experienced by UK companies following CNPD strategies. The research suggests that careful management is necessary to achieve the potenti...

Collaboration in new technology-based product markets

In the context o f an apparently increasing contemporary interest in the phenomenon of collaboration, this paper reviews some of the major issues associated with such cooperative activity.Possible reasons for an increase in collaboration are suggested, as are the ofen neglected non-benifits of collaboration, before the variety of influences on the process of collaboration management are discussed. The authors adopt a critical stance towardsjnancial measures as indicators of ‘success’ and ‘failure’:arguing that such an approach is simplistic and neglects may of the more intangible benifits of engaging in collaboration. A model of the possible factors aJecting the process of collaboration is proposed and two case studies ofproduct development collaborations in new technolopbased sectors illustrate some of the issues discussed in the paper.

The evolution and strategic management of new technology-based sectors: the case of computerized business systems

Accepted paradigms of strategic management can be expected to be adapted for new technology where inter alia, the pace of technological change is rapid, uncertainty intense, and product life cycles short. It is argued that there are generic drivers of the euolutzon of such new technology sectors, and that the early identification of anticipation of and adaptatzon to these general forces can in theory provide businesses with a strategic advantage. Businesses, however, are often possessed of considerable inertia whilst the managerial perception of such sector trends can be affected by inter alia earlier commit-ments and experiences. This paper analyses such issues of strategic management with reference to the computerized business systems sector i n which the authors have conducted extensive empirical research over a two-year period.