New Product Development in Taiwan''s IT Industry: The Cooperation between R&D and Marketing

• Main Authors: Louis Yu-Yang Lu, 盧煜煬
• Other Authors: Chyan Yang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/33541403235848093778

博士 === 國立交通大學 === 經營管理研究所 === 92 === Taiwan started its information technology (IT) industry in the 1970s, and although it has been only 20 some odd years since then, the achievements have been quite outstanding. Taiwan-made IT products now dominate the worldwide market in many categories, with more than half of these products having gained over 50% of their respective worldwide market share. Such successful experiences deserve to be documented and lessons can be learned. This study first identifies a popular NPD process adopted by the majority of Taiwanese IT firms. Two empirical analyses are then performed to examine the NPD activities in Taiwan’s IT industry. One investigates the factors that impact the cooperation between R&D and marketing from a macro view, where intangible perception and tangible integrating mechanisms are the factors to be examined. The other analysis examines from a micro perspective, investigating the relationships between the perceived importance of cooperation and the attained level of cooperation stage by stage. The data are collected from the R&D and marketing managers of IT firms listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The results are described as follows. First, the intangible perception of cooperation has a stronger impact on R&D-marketing cooperation than any other tangible integrating mechanism. The stronger the perceived importance is, the higher the attained level will be. Second, manager’s experience has been demonstrated to be significantly related to NPD performance. Third, formalization is the most effective tangible mechanism to enhance R&D-marketing cooperation. Fourth, by utilizing the Internet, e-mail, and videoconferencing technologies well, physical separation barriers can be minimized and synergy can be generated. Fifth, merely having a higher level of perceived importance of R&D-marketing cooperation does not necessarily assure that an NPD project will gain a better performance. Only those NPD projects that have effective R&D and marketing cooperation can achieve a higher successful rate. Sixth, firms that adopt a Defender strategy show the worst NPD performance in comparison with firms that adopt a Prospector or an Analyzer strategy. Finally, environmental uncertainty is a big challenge to the IT industry. Due to an extreme short product life, there is little room for an NPD team to re-design new products. R&D and marketing personnel must work closely from the beginning to the end in order to react quickly against technical and market uncertainty.