Launch Strategies

Abstract

Decisions made during the launch phase are recognized as important drivers of new‐product performance. At the same time, a new‐product launch is often the single most costly step in the new‐product development process. This launch phase also involves large risks as this stage is often the make‐or‐break point for a product's life cycle. The present article summarizes the extant knowledge on successful launch strategies. It starts by discussing the differences between strategic and tactical launch decisions, and then it presents how different launch strategies are related to new‐product performance. Subsequently, we discuss some important antecedents of successful launch decisions, such as the corporate mind‐set and a firm's market orientation. A successful launch strategy should not only focus on the final customer but it should also target other stakeholders in the firm's environment, such as suppliers, competitors, and the sales force. We identify several of these important stakeholders and show how these potential diffusion barriers can be successfully addressed during the launch phase of a new product.

Developing a New Market Testing Procedure in the Context of Radical Innovation

“…For radical innovation [38] demonstrated that current market research are not reliable as the perceptions for the radical products are not controlled by the marketers and users own real-world experience. Moreover, for radical innovations the traditional testing is not well suited and leads to wrong product introduction to wrong consumers at the wrong times [34,35]. To support the uncertainty related to radical innovations (Breakthrough Products) and the incapability of conventional testing finding the right consumer who will drive the radical innovation is a crucial factor [22,23].…”