Development Needs And Means Of Product Innovation Management In Finnish Manufacturing Companies

The management of the early phases of the product development process is critical for the success of the whole product development. This study clarifies the management problems and bottlenecks in the early phases of product development. The purpose of this study was to determine important development needs and means of product innovation management in five leading Finnish high-tech manufacturing companies.We developed a systematic analysis approach in order to form an extensive company level view of development needs and means. The developed analysis approach helped to collect different department representatives' partly divergent views of the causes and effects of product innovation management problems and form a common, comprehensive company level picture of the causes and effects. Causal analysis produced more understanding of effective means to remove problems and vicious loops of product innovation management.