scholarly journals Challenges of Knowledge and Information Management during New Product Introduction: Experiences from a Finnish Multinational Company

10.28945/3588 ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 285-308
Author(s):  
Eeva M. Järvenpää ◽  
Miia-Johanna Kopra ◽  
Minna Lanz
Keyword(s):  
Information Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
New Product ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Multinational Company ◽  
New Product Introduction ◽  
Product Introduction ◽  
Management Literature

Efficient knowledge and information management is essential for companies to prosper in the rapidly changing global environment. This article presents challenges of a large Finnish multinational company relating to their current knowledge and information management practices and systems. The focus is on New Product Introduction (NPI) process. The study is based on interviews and facilitated workshops in the Research and Development (R&D) and Production departments. Furthermore, the identified challenges are reflected to the findings presented in knowledge and information management literature. The results gained from the company case study were well in line with the findings in the literature. Three main topics, which can be generalized to cause challenges for knowledge and information management in most companies, were recognized: 1) Issues related to human behavior, individual characteristics and capabilities, different backgrounds, and professional vocabulary; 2) Codifying tacit knowledge into explicit information, which can be saved to company information system; 3) Lack of interoperability between different information systems. The study provides the management of the case company, and other similar organizations, focus points while seeking for better knowledge and information management. From a scientific perspective, the main contribution of this article is to give practical examples of how the theoretical findings presented in literature manifest themselves in real industrial practices.

Identifying a set of line manager personas to guide new product introduction strategy

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 34-42
Author(s):  
Karla Straker ◽  
Genevieve Mosely ◽  
Cara Wrigley
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Management ◽  
New Products ◽  
New Product ◽  
Leadership Team ◽  
New Product Introduction ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Senior Leadership ◽  
Product Introduction ◽  
Content Type

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new strategic management tool – the reverse persona. In doing so, the methods, use and benefits documented from a case study with a global franchisee organization are presented. Design/methodology/approach This tool was derived from working with a global franchisee organization sought to design and launch a new product into the market. The reverse persona was deployed through n=14 qualitative interviews with franchisee owners were conducted to understand their perceptions of customers, awareness and concern of competition and their willingness to take risks. These insights were collated to develop reverse personas for the senior leadership team within the organization. Findings Changing the scope of personas from external customers to internal employee development, can further strengthen the method’s effectiveness in decision-making and strategic management, particularly for the implementation and roll out of new products. Practical implications In the case study, the senior leadership team saw the manager persona as a strategic aid to, “Help target the implementation of new products in stores, select franchise owners for potential new roles and to deeply understand the motivations, challenges and attributes of their middle management contributing to the competitive advantage of the organisation.” Originality/value This article is the first to explore the use of personas for internal strategic planning use within a company.

scholarly journals The Impact of Additive Manufacturing on the Flexibility of a Manufacturing Supply Chain

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 3707
Author(s):  
Ageel Abdulaziz Alogla ◽  
Martin Baumers ◽  
Christopher Tuck ◽  
Waiel Elmadih
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chain ◽  
Additive Manufacturing ◽  
New Product ◽  
Supply Chain Design ◽  
New Product Introduction ◽  
Product Introduction ◽  
Chain Flexibility ◽  
Supply Chain Flexibility ◽  
The Impact

There is an increasing need for supply chains that can rapidly respond to fluctuating demands and can provide customised products. This supply chain design requires the development of flexibility as a critical capability. To this end, firms are considering Additive Manufacturing (AM) as one strategic option that could enable such a capability. This paper develops a conceptual model that maps AM characteristics relevant to flexibility against key market disruption scenarios. Following the development of this model, a case study is undertaken to indicate the impact of adopting AM on supply chain flexibility from four major flexibility-related aspects: volume, mix, delivery, and new product introduction. An inter-process comparison is implemented in this case study using data collected from a manufacturing company that produces pipe fittings using Injection Moulding (IM). The supply chain employing IM in this case study shows greater volume and delivery flexibility levels (i.e., 65.68% and 92.8% for IM compared to 58.70% and 75.35% for AM, respectively) while the AM supply chain shows greater mix and new product introduction flexibility, indicated by the lower changeover time and cost of new product introduction to the system (i.e., 0.33 h and €0 for AM compared to 4.91 h and €30,000 for IM, respectively). This work will allow decision-makers to take timely decisions by providing useful information on the effect of AM adoption on supply chain flexibility in different sudden disruption scenarios such as demand uncertainty, demand variability, lead-time compression and product variety.

scholarly journals Do Private Equity Owned Firms Have Better Management Practices?

2015 ◽  
Vol 105 (5) ◽  
pp. 442-446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Bloom ◽  
Raffaella Sadun ◽  
John Van Reenen
Keyword(s):  
Continuous Improvement ◽  
Lean Manufacturing ◽  
Private Equity ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
New Product ◽  
New Product Introduction ◽  
Product Introduction ◽  
Listed Firms ◽  
Privately Owned ◽  
Survey Measure

Using an innovative survey measure of management practices on over 15,000 firms, we find private equity firms are better managed than government, family, and privately owned firms, and have similar management to publicly listed firms. This is true both in developed and developing countries. Looking at management practices in detail we find that private equity owned firms have strong people management practices (hiring, firing, pay, and promotions), but even stronger monitoring management practices (lean manufacturing, continuous improvement, and monitoring). Plant managers working in private equity owned firms also report greater autonomy from headquarters over sales, marketing, and new product introduction.

scholarly journals A Bilingual Comparison of Sentiment and Topics for a Product Event on Twitter

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irina Wedel ◽  
Michael Palk ◽  
Stefan Voß
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Topic Modeling ◽  
New Product ◽  
Business Value ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
New Product Introduction ◽  
Social Media Analytics ◽  
Product Introduction ◽  
Textual Data

AbstractSocial media enable companies to assess consumers’ opinions, complaints and needs. The systematic and data-driven analysis of social media to generate business value is summarized under the term Social Media Analytics which includes statistical, network-based and language-based approaches. We focus on textual data and investigate which conversation topics arise during the time of a new product introduction on Twitter and how the overall sentiment is during and after the event. The analysis via Natural Language Processing tools is conducted in two languages and four different countries, such that cultural differences in the tonality and customer needs can be identified for the product. Different methods of sentiment analysis and topic modeling are compared to identify the usability in social media and in the respective languages English and German. Furthermore, we illustrate the importance of preprocessing steps when applying these methods and identify relevant product insights.

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