Best Practices in New Product Development and Innovation: Results From PDMA's 2021 Global Survey
Mette Praest Knudsen, Max von Zedtwitz, Abbie Griffin, & Gloria Barczak
kHUB post date: June 12, 2023
Originally published: January 27, 2023 (PDMA JPIM • Vol 40, Issue 3 • May 2023)
Read time: 40 minutes
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Extending 30 years of NPD best practice studies, this paper presents the results of the most recent 2021 global best practice survey on product development management practices conducted by the Product Development & Management Association (PDMA). With responses from 651 companies in 37 countries, the results reveal once again that no single capability is necessary or sufficient to explain the best performance. The Best firms rely on the skillful combination of multiple new product development (NPD) practices to achieve greater overall innovation success. However, for the first time in this series of research, having an innovation strategy that encourages radical innovation, is oriented toward risk-taking and long-term, and strives for growth through new markets and new technologies is now a more important component of these practices than was previously found. Further results regarding the practices of the Best are discussed in the paper, and implications are provided.
Practitioner Points
- Firms must continually evolve their NPD capabilities just to “stay in the game” as the business and technology environments change.
- No one single practice is required for greater innovation performance. Rather, the Best firms are better at employing and skillfully combining a variety of NPD capabilities and practices.
- The Best firms are much more likely to have a new product strategy that encourages radical innovation, is oriented toward risk-taking and long-term, and strives for growth through entering new markets and new technologies. They also spend more than the Rest on developing all types of innovations.
- The Best are more proactive in dealing with crises such as the global COVID-19 pandemic.