A Holistic Approach to New Product Development: New Insights

A participative approach to New Product Development (NPD) has been advocated in the literature since the mid-1980s. Nonetheless, the integration of NPD remains one of the top challenges facing managers of U.S. manufacturing firms. Even the most astute managers today find it difficult to evaluate the potential of new business ideas - their attractiveness to potential customers, the realistic price that may be obtained and whether they can be made available profitably. Yet, despite the wealth of information generated concerning participative NPD, it is evident that practice still seldom follows theory: many firms have not adopted CE, or have only partially implemented it.