Dealing with a nonobvious source of problems related to selecting R&D to meet customers' future needs: weaknesses within an R&D organization's and within a marketing organization's individual operations

摘要

The problems related to selecting R&D (research and development) to meet customers' future needs plague all industrial companies. The most obvious source of these problems is poor coordination between a company's R&D organization and its marketing organization. An unobvious source of problems related to selecting R&D to meet customers' future needs, i.e. weaknesses within an R&D organization's and within a marketing organization's individual operations, is considered. Three steps are recommended for strengthening an R&D organization's and a marketing organization's individual operations. The three steps for both organization's are: to broaden their members' ideas about their own responsibilities; to change how people and/or activities are managed; and to get their members to make better efforts to identify customer's needs.