Product Variety Strategy for Improving Product Development Proficiencies

Based on a cross-industry sample of 103 Korean manufacturers, this study examines the role of new product development proficiencies for platform and derivative projects. The results of this study show that companies pursuing a higher degree of platform-based product variety perceive that they have to more proficiently execute process-planning, marketing, and technical activities for the platform project to improve product family technical success compared to companies emphasizing a lower degree of platform-based product variety. However, only superior execution of marketing activities for derivative projects appear to facilitate product family technical success. Our results stress the primacy of marketing capabilities, relative to process-planning and technical proficiencies, in improving product family technical performance. Mediational regression analyses suggest that, for higher product variety firms, commercial success of the product family may not be conditional upon superior execution of these activities relative to their lower product variety counterparts. The article concludes with discussion of implication for practice, theory and research.