New product development is central to many firms' future success. Not only as a means to continue to maintain their piece of the market, but product development can also be a strategic means for a company to diversify, and/or alter focus to adapt to changing market conditions. Most of the research in new product development has been on how to do it cheaper and faster than the next guy. However, early commercialization does not guarantee a position of strength in the market. Failures of EMI in CT scanners and Xerox in personal computers illustrate that being first to market does not ensure success or even survival. There are two main factors that inhibit managers from making educated decisions on when to introduce a new product. First, firms do not exist in a vacuum and any action they take will be countered by their competition. Second, with new products the only certainty is uncertainty. To allow such decisions to become "gut feeling" decisions puts a company's future at unnecessary risk. This is evidenced by the many firms that have had devastating results because of poor decisions with regard to launching a new product. While high level quantitative tools have recently begun to be used to evaluate corporate strategy, these tools are still mainly confined to research groups within large corporations. Both real options (to handle uncertainty) and game theory (to capture the effects of the competitions actions) have been evaluated and used by these groups. However, they have not been adequately integrated together in the academic world, let alone in industry. This thesis help bridge the gap between strategic decision making, and the theoretical world of economic decision analysis creating a prescriptive model companies can use to evaluate strategically important new product launches. To bridge this gap a method that is able to handle the integration of game-theoretic and options-theoretic reasoning to the strategic analysis of new product introduction is developed. Not only was a method developed that could incorporate the two methods it was done in a way that is accessible and useful outside of the academic world.

This diploma thesis is about a newly established company whose owner invented a new product for slackline. In the theoretical part will be explained various terms such as marketing, marketing mix and its sub-elements. Further, the methodology of marketing research will be described. The practical part of this thesis will describe the company and will analyze the external environment and the analysis of competition, analysis of marketing mix elements and marketing research on potential customers to which the company targets. Based on previous analyzes and research will be the proposals for improvement of the marketing mix of the company formed.

The main objective of the diploma thesis Ways of introduction of the new product in the market is to evaluate and choose suitable marketing strategy for the management of company Schrack Technik spol. s r.o. which is considering introduction of the new product in the market. The new product is electric vehicle charging station. Due to comprehensiveness of the main objective there are also set two partial objectives which are interconnected and contribute to its elaboration. First partial objective is to define company´s situation on the market applying financial analysis, analysis of internal and external environment (Porter´s five forces, PESTE, SWOT analysis) which should help to find company´s strength and weaknesses, evaluate possible threats and opportunities. Second partial objective is to evaluate whether the electro mobile industry is attractive or not.

Purpose – The purpose of the research is to increase the understanding of how insufficient information sharing between internal stakeholders can be mitigated during new product development projects. Two research questions were formulated to conduct answers to the purpose.  Why is it crucial to mitigate insufficient information sharing between internal stakeholders during new product development projects? How can potential challenges during new product development projects be mitigated through information sharing between internal stakeholders? Method – To create an understanding of information sharing a literature review was conducted, which formed the foundation of the theoretical framework. Through a case study at SAAB Training & Simulation, interviews were used as the main source for empirical data. Document studies and observations were used to triangulate the findings. The collected data and theoretical framework were analyzed and discussed to propose improvements. Findings – The research findings indicate that an insufficient information flow can cause several challenges related to deadlines, profit and how information is interpreted. It should therefore be a prioritization for an organization to constantly improve how information is shared between internal stakeholders during new product development projects. Additionally, the research analysis suggests that organizations’ need to allocate more time for educational opportunities. Implications – The research highlighted a new perspective on previous research within the area. Through the research analysis statements and theories made by other researchers were further strengthened. The research suggests ways of improving information sharing between internal stakeholders. The result can be used by other industrial organizations working with new product development projects to improve their information sharing to mitigate challenges connected to insufficient information sharing. Limitations – Due to the complexity of information sharing within new product development projects, the research was limited to one case company. Additionally, mainly managers were interviewed which posed a risk that the collected data only provided an overview rather than a deep insight in the processes of sharing information between internal stakeholders. If the authors were to use several organizations and conduct more interviews, the results could increase the credibility and generalizability of the research.

Innovation is extremely important for companies to gain and sustain competitive advantage in the modern business environment. Nowadays ability to adapt and evolve is crucial for any company willing to survive. The key to effective adaption and evolvement is innovation. New products are commonly seen as an output of innovation whereas new product development process is considered to be a sub-process of innovation.  The thesis focuses on development of a new product in the company the author has been working for. It aims at assessing the methods that the company is employing to develop new products. The goal is to determine the flaws in the new product development process of the company and the negative effects on performance and output the flaws have.  The thesis describes the generic new product development process, a certain form of which is used by majority of the companies involved in new product development. It contains a narrative literature review of articles documenting research in the field of best practices of new product development. It also reviews studies of critical factors of new product success, which separate the best performing companies from the others.  The thesis uses the best practice research and success factors studies as a reference point to assess the methods and evaluate the process that the company used to develop the product the thesis is focused on. The thesis also describes the market and the competition that the company is facing. In the end it gives a number of recommendations. The company can use the results as guidelines for improvement.

Today, companies have to redesign and improve their operational performance to cope with the market competition. While research related to organizational improvements has focused on applications of value stream mapping in mass production plants, it is unclear whether value steam mapping can be applied in new product introduction organizations. This thesis strives to generate and describe a customized value stream mapping tool adapted to manage twofold customer value within new product introduction environments, processes that construct products and information gathered from the production and incorporated into next generation products. The study is conducted with a case study approach including an application of the model in an industrial setting. The findings implicate that the value stream mapping tool is applicable when managing performance improvements during new product introduction. Moreover, performance measures to evaluate the new product introduction information loop are presented.

Escalation of commitment in new product development has been studied extensively for the last four decades but the impact of culture on the escalation phenomenon remains largely unexplored. This study investigates how culture impacts the decision to escalate or deescalate commitment to new products. Americans are analytic thinkers whereas Chinese tend to be holistic thinkers. When it comes to decision making, analytic thinkers focus on field independent and abstract factors and believe that future is linear and static, whereas holistic thinkers focus more on contextual factors and believe that future is dynamic and nonlinear. Hence, Chinese are more likely to escalate their commitment relative to Americans on receiving a negative performance report in the new product development process. A lab experiment using weekend MBA students and managers was used to test this underlying hypothesis. The findings confirmed that analytical thinkers use fewer factors than holistic thinkers in making new product decisions, and that Chinese managers are more likely to escalate their commitment relative to American managers. The decision to escalate or de-escalate was moderated by perceived product innovativeness.

Companies that advertise during the Super Bowl can reach 40 million U.S. households with a 30-second commercial spot, but the cost can exceed $2 million. This research examines Nielsen television ratings and expenses for related commercial spots and suggests that the Super Bowl is not always the best site for introducing new companies or products to the marketplace. ANOVA test results indicate that younger companies may better affect purchase decisions by advertising more frequently during less expensive programming slots.

In today's business, organizations are working with external stakeholders to develop a better product. Customers are one such stakeholder with whom organizations collaborate to develop a product fulfilling their needs. This process of Co-Creation facilitates organizations to get closer to their customers. Also in the study made in the year 2016 for the 19th annual global CEO survey, 90% of the CEOs have claimed Customers to be their main priorities. Further in the literature has also debated the process of customer co-creation being complex and studies have been made to understand the Ups and Downs of the process. Problem Background: Based on the opportunity in the field of Co-Creation growing rapidly and literature arguing on both Success and failure of the process, we in our thesis aim to address the gap of identifying the factors that influence the Customer Co-Creation Process. The Purpose of our thesis was to Identify the Factors for Organizations that Influence the process and suggest to imply those factors during the process of Co-Creation for a better result.  To answer our research question we chose a qualitative approach by interviewing a total of 5 members from different organizations and different businesses in a semi-structured interview format. We chose to do research from both Customer and Organizational perspective, we formed 2 cases out of the 4 interviews and one as an expert in the field of New Product Development. The main findings of our research shows 6 Main Influencing Factors and 12 Sub Factors within 6 main factors that enrich the process of co-creation. The factors are Communication (Feedback & Highlighting the need to Customer), Management (Environment, Relationship Management, Flexibility /Exploratory, Leadership, Rewards/Incentives, Selection of Customer), Transparency, Commitment & Trust (Secrecy Concern, Sharing of IP), Consistency, Training (Employee and Customer). Our research shows the factors on the application during the co-creation process can influence the process to a better output. We have suggested the organizations in our Organizational Implications on how these factors can influence the process to a better output. Thus, answering our research question.

Co-creation has been conceptualized in a number of ways but is generally referred to as an ongoing partnership between a firm and stakeholders (i.e. consumers) to collaboratively identify and solve mutually beneficial issues. While current scholarship has deepened our knowledge about the process of including consumers in the co-production of value, much remains to be learned. This is particularly true with respect to the consumer behavior side of the discipline as it pertains to creativity and motivation. Thus, the focus of the following three essays is to investigate how customer participation in the ideation of products and advertising influences down-stream responses, depending upon an individual's regulatory focus. According to regulatory focus theory, individuals are motivated to pursue their goals based upon two distinct self-regulatory systems known as promotion and prevention. Promotion-focused consumers are most concerned with the achievement of accomplishments and aspirations, which often results in approach oriented behavior. In contrast, prevention focused individuals seek to avoid negative end states, such as losses, and therefore are concerned with their security, duties, and obligations, resulting in avoidance-related behavior. These two distinct motivational states influence the way these individuals approach creative goals, which shares commonalities with co-creation. By its very nature, the goal of co-creation is to develop novel output, which often requires creativity. However, the way promotion versus prevention consumers approach creativity significantly varies, and therefore, the purpose of the present research is to understand how regulatory focus interacts with co-creation across three specific contexts to influence consumer responses. Essay 1, titled "From Ordinary to Extraordinary: Using Analogies to Increase Consumer-Brand Outcomes," finds across two studies that when engaging in co-creation, promotion focused individuals have significantly greater purchase intentions if first given an analogical reasoning task prior to a co-creation activity. Prevention-focused consumers (who are often considered less creative) can also experience heightened creativity and purchase intentions if first primed with images having common ground (near analogies) as inspiration, compared to promotion individuals who need images with less common ground (far analogies). In addition, study 1 found that an analogical reasoning task produces ideas that are significantly more creative than providing no task, whereas study 2 finds that far visual analogies produce ideas that are significantly more creative than near analogies. Two post-hoc studies also provide additional insights. Essay 2, titled "Advertising Co-Creation to Decease Texting and Driving: A Regulatory Focus Perspective," demonstrates that co-creation and creativity can also be helpful within a social marketing context (i.e. texting and driving). Construal level theory is combined with regulatory focus theory to show how user generated advertisements about the dangers of texting and driving are more effective at decreasing harmful behavior than an ad that was not self-created. However, it depends upon who the advertisement is created for (i.e. social distance). Across 4 studies, essay 2 finds that a co-created advertisement, as opposed to an ad that was no self-created, is more effective at reducing cell phone related distracted driving because it encourages deeper processing of information which then increases mental imagery and advertisement believability. However, the effectiveness of a co-created ad for decreasing harmful texting behavior can be further enhanced by asking promotion focused consumers to create a socially far advertisement (i.e. ad for an average college student) vs a socially near advertisement (i.e. ad for best friend) for prevention focused individuals. Analytical vs. imagery processing are offered as explanations. Essay 3, titled "Regulatory Focus and Creativity: How an Episodic Induction Enhances Self-Perceived Levels of Creativity and Downstream Consumer-Brand Responses," explores the differences between prevention and promotion individuals pertaining to their self-views of creativeness and how this influences brand responses. Specifically, 5 studies demonstrate that promotion individuals have more positive brand responses (i.e. willingness to pay) when engaging in a creative brand encounter because they have more certainty in their own ideas which increases self-perceived level of creativity. However, prevention individuals can also experience positive outcomes by appealing to their episodic memory through a remembering the past task, which helps them to have more certainty in their own ideas which then increases self-perceived level of creativity. These positive outcomes can be further strengthened by prompting prevention consumers to remember a positive past experience. In summary, these three essays provide a solid foundation of how regulatory focus interacts with co-creation and creativity to influence down-stream responses. Essay 1 provides evidence for the merits of giving consumers a creative task that matches their regulatory focus prior to engaging in a creative brand encounter. Next, essay 2 explores how advertising co-creation can be an effective way of reducing texting and driving behavior among college students. Lastly, essay 3 examines how self-perceived creativity influences downstream brand responses depending upon one's regulatory focus.