Title: Launch lessons from a growing global supplier of industrial equipment

Authors: Tuula Lehtimaki, Jari Salo, Heikki Karjaluoto

Addresses: Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Department of Marketing, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 4600, FIN-90014, Finland. ' Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Department of Marketing, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 4600, FIN-90014, Finland. ' School of Business and Economics, University of Jyvaskyla, P.O. Box 35 (MaE), FIN-40014, Finland

Abstract: Although the launch phase in New Product Development (NPD) has been recognised as a vital stage affecting the success of new products, it is often poorly managed for various reasons. The purpose of this paper is to understand launch management in its context better by looking at the drivers and bottlenecks of launches inside a young and growing global industrial equipment supplier with the use of a case study method. The findings of the study show that the enforcement of internal marketing, market knowledge use, marketing communications and the organisation of marketing activities and their links to other company functions are the main drivers of a successful launch. The paper presents a launch as an independent process managed by the marketing department and discusses the links between the launch and other processes such as NPD. Both theoretical and managerial contributions are provided at the end.

Keywords: new product development; NPD; product launch; growing firms; global suppliers; best practices; launch management; launch challenges; launch drivers; business excellence; industrial equipment supplier.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBEX.2008.018839

International Journal of Business Excellence, 2008 Vol.1 No.4, pp.375 - 390

Published online: 19 Jun 2008 *

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