The marketplace in the 21st century is intense and highly competitive. Customers have a great variety of products and services to choose from, therefor gaining competitive advantage is crucial for a company´s survival. Companies cannot rely on previous product success, they have to be innovative in order to meet the ever-changing customer needs and wants. New product launch is a critical and challenging phase for every company, which is proven by the high failure rates. There are many barriers that can hinder and determine a new product launch process. This study focuses on Business-to-Business, small and medium sized companies within the Swedish steel and metal industry with the purpose to investigate what barriers occur when launching new industrial products. The study also aims to answer the question on what actions can be taken in order to overcome these barriers. This is a qualitative and comparative study based on a theoretical framework combined with empirical findings gathered from five in-depth interviews. By analyzing and comparing the findings throughout this study, the authors can conclude that there are many barriers that can occur and affect a product launch process negatively. The main barriers identified were lack of knowledge, effort, planning as well as targeting and competition. The study also resulted in practical suggestions and actions that can be taken in order to overcome these barriers and ease the launch process.   Key words: New product launch, Barriers in launch processes, B2B, Swedish companies, SME`s, Marketing

Virtual reality is a rapidly growing innovation that has many real-world applications inengineering, healthcare, education and much more. More startups are emerging, and someof these companies are developing virtual reality simulators that allows the user toimmerse themselves completely in the virtual world with the use hardware devices.Companies like Infinadeck and Omnifinity have developed one such hardware known asthe walking simulator. This paper studied virtual reality and the barriers that occur whenlaunching a virtual reality walking simulator in the US for the entertainment industry. Theresearch was conducted on B2B companies that manufacture and use virtual realitywalking simulators with the addition of an industry outside of the entertainment industryto allow for comparison of the barriers. This study was a qualitative and comparativestudy based on a theoretical framework combined with empirical findings gathered fromeleven interviews with individuals from the manufacturers, entertainment center and themilitary. By analyzing and comparing the findings throughout this study, the authors canconclude that there are several barriers that can occur and affect launching a virtual realitywalking simulator process negatively. The barriers identified were price, hesitation to tryand reliability. These findings when analyzed with the theoretical framework identified that the emergence of these barriers was due to VR being such advanced technology. Thecustomers understanding of the value it creates is a determining factor when deciding tomake the purchase which showed to be highly complex with the VR walking simulator.The study also offers suggestions that can be taken for future research.

A main topic of thesis has been new product launch of lever arch file OneTip. The goal has been to evaluate propriety and correctness of marketing tools used. I defined crucial project points and set up my own solutions and proposals in marketing recommendation chapter.

Every new product launching industrial company faces the difficulties of forecasting future success or failure of a new product before launch. Before launch it is common to develop a business case in order to estimate future quantities and set prices. In the present paper the challenges of developing a standardized business case tool for a large industrial construction and mining company are presented. Few academic studies have been conducted on the challenges and complexities of developing business cases. The research question under which this study is done is: What are the challenges associated with developing an effective standardized business case tool for a large industrial construction and mining company? Due to the different subject areas of the business case for new product launch, the challenges are categorized by topics developed by the researcher in the course of this project: process and team, data gathering and validation, quantity forecast and price forecast. The main challenges found in these categories by the researcher are: finding and motivating experts for the project of developing a standardized business case, gathering and selecting all data necessary without including redundant data, ensuring that different potential new products can be forecasted and designing the price forecast to be profit-maximizing. Solutions to these challenges are provided in the context of a case company by using methods suggested by the academic literature and the evaluation of expert interviews inside the case company

This thesis focuses on innovations and innovation management in ma-nufacturing companies. Innovation process, including marketing re-search, product developing and its market introduction, is used in par-ticular product sector of shoe protection.

The diploma thesis deals with a new product launch in Czech market. First, the appropriate market segment, competitive products and environment of launching company is analyzed. Based on the analysis and the knowledge gained from the literature, the diploma thesis proposes a solution in form of a marketing mix, which is suitable for the new product.

Tato diplomová práce je zaměřena na vývoj marketingové strategie pro zavedení produktů na vysoce konkurečním trhu zdravotnických prostředků. Konkrétně se zaměřuje na zavedení ablačního katetru a mapovacího zařízení pro léčbu srdečních chorob, které vyrábí americká společnost St. Jude Medical. Práce popisuje zavedení na trh, aby bylo možné najít kritické body a optimalizovat celý tento proces.