In search of generic launch strategies for new products

We present a research model that allows the investigation of many of the complexities of new product launch strategies, empirically test for hypothesized relationships among launch strategy decisions, shed light on the ways in which managers tend to build choices among launch decision options into generic launch strategies and link new product performance to managers' generic strategies. Analyses of over 900 manufactured goods new product launches show that over half the decisions in launch strategies are interdependent, that is, the decision made for one variable is associated with a decision choice made previously in the product development process. Thus, several decisions managers make in the new product launch require choosing launch decision options consistent with already-made launch choices. From the data we also identify three generic launch strategies across which new product performance statistically varies. Although the set of decisions which comprises each strategy is only a smaller portion of the full set investigated, we find that these decision sets are associated with different levels of performance across multiple industries, products and geography. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.