New product introduction: Learning from India

Abstract

In the modern day competitive world the continuous development and introduction of new products is a very important for the sustaining the profitability of any company’s performance. Although new products open up new opportunities for companies, there is a substantial risk associated with these new products which should not be neglected. Therefore it is obvious that the management of a company is highly interested in learning about those factors which impact the success of new products. The identification of these factors based on empirical research has the objective of success factor studies in new product development. However, very few studies have examined the reason behind the success or failure of new product launches in India. In this study we will try to analyze why the products that entered Indian markets succeeded or failed. We will specifically take examples from the durable categories like Indian automobile and consumer electronics industry for the purpose. This report has been organized in the following way. It discusses the propositions used in this research, then the research design used for this study, the findings on the impact of independent variables on the overall product evaluations, conclusions and managerial implications based on the study. In the final part of the report limitations of the study and subsequent future directions are given. The factors considered for this study are Relative Quality Advantage, Compatibility with Values, Complexity of Adoption, Inherent Risk, and Communicability Issues. Apart from the abovementioned five factors we strongly felt that a perceived role in status up-gradation and use of India specific cues in IMC are important in the Indian context.