The PDMA Handbook of New Product Development

36.1. Introduction

New products and services are critical to a business's long-term success. In support of this critical element within a business, a major aspect of the PDMA's charter is to help firms and product development professionals increase their understanding and management of new product development. Under this charter, the PDMA sponsored studies of product development best practices in 1990 and 1995. This research has resulted in many presentations and articles covering the state of product development practices, including a chapter by Thomas Hustad (1996) in the PDMA Handbook of New Product Development (Volume 1), entitled "Reviewing Current Practices in Innovation Management and a Summary of Selected Best Practices."

Given the changes in new product development practices that have taken place in firms since 1995, and the opportunity to examine these changes over time, the PDMA Foundation, during 2003, conducted the Comparative Performance Assessment Study (CPAS). The 2003 survey updated and broadened the scope of the previous research. This chapter presents first findings and is based on 201 responses, primarily from PDMA members, received at the time of writing this chapter in December 2003. (By the second quarter of 2004, more than 400 responses are expected from both PDMA and non-PDMA respondents.). This sample includes:

• 52 percent products companies, 15 percent primarily services companies, and 33 percent companies with a mixture of products and services

• 52 percent ...