The Scheme of Product Development Process as a Trigger to Product Success: A Theoretical Framework

Researches on product development since 1970s have discussed many aspects. However, none of them clearly describes the relationship between product development activities and product success, the final goal of a business. This paper presents the development of a theoretical framework of the way product development affects product success. The result of a meta-analysis study prior to this study shows that product development is one of the five variables proven to influence product success (r = 0.32). Based on this result, a theoretical framework is developed through five stages. First, relationship between product development and four other variables is evaluated. Through an evaluation on some established models of product development process and a meta-analysis study, three variables, i.e. product characteristic, technological advanced, and management, could be assumed to be inseparable from and closely related to the product development process (0.57 ≤ r ≤ 0.64), while one other variable, market environment, is externally driven and still separated. Second, product development scheme is defined to cover the three variables mentioned above. A meta-analysis study is conducted and the result shows that product development scheme significantly affects the product success (r = 0.31). The model then is restructured into a model of the relationship between product success and the two remaining variables. Third, five sub-variables of product development process, as the elements of product development scheme, is developed based on a mostly referred model and some cases in Indonesia. Forth, a meta-analysis study on the relationship between product success and the five sub-variables is done (0.30 ≤ r ≤ 0.38). Finally, a theoretical framework to model the relationship of product success and product development scheme is developed, as a part of further study.