Product Juggernauts: How Companies Mobilize to Generate a Stream of Market Winners - Hardcover

Deschamps, Jean-Philippe; Nayak, P. Ranganath

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0875843417 ISBN 13: 9780875843414

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press, 1995

Synopsis

This text provides guidelines for determining the products customers want and the designing of products they want to buy. It shows how to create and manage a business strategy based on successful new products, giving ideas from different industries and widely scattered nations. The book also combines fiction with theory from real, contemporary companies.

About this title

About the Author

Since 1984, Harvard Business School Press has been dedicated to publishing the most contemporary management thinking, written by authors and practitioners who are leading the way. Whether readers are seeking big-picture strategic thinking or tactical problem solving, advice in managing global corporations or for developing personal careers, HBS Press helps fuel the fire of innovative thought. HBS Press has earned a reputation as the springboard of thought for both established and emerging business leaders.

From the Back Cover

Product juggernauts - companies that have achieved market leadership by creating a continuous flow of world-class products - have redefined existing markets and created new bases of competition. They have achieved domination by focusing their entire organization on the interlocking elements of the product creation process - from customer analysis and product development to manufacturing and marketing. Product Juggernauts is grounded in the authors' years of hands-on consulting experience. It features lessons from companies that consider product creation to be their core process and work hard at improving it - including Canon, Ford, Honda, Philips, Rubbermaid, and Toshiba. Product Juggernauts shows that the key to constantly creating world-class products, whether companies choose to compete on speed, service, innovation, value, design, product proliferation, or any combination of these, is to develop seven core competencies across every function in the organization. Companies must: create a customer obsession; devise a bold product strategy and plan; deploy a multifunctional product creation process; empower program managers; forge committed teams; marshall the best resources; speed up the process. Product Juggernauts is a holistic, practical, and original book that will change the way organizations think about the product creation process and - through vivid examples of successful companies and managers' checklists for specific action - show them what to do to realign the organization toward a process focus and achieve sustained high performance.

Reviews

Two management concepts that have received a lot of attention recently are "virtual corporation" and "continuous improvement." A key component of each is the idea that product development becomes an ongoing and interactive process, with the manufacturer, sales force, and customer all working together to refine, adapt, and improve products and to suggest and create new ones. The authors, both with the prestigious Arthur D. Little consulting firm, call companies that are successful at doing this "product juggernauts." Deschamps and Nayak provide specific, practical advice on how best to organize companies to emulate these juggernauts, using examples such as Phillips, Casio, Rubbermaid, SONY, Lexus, and Braun. The authors will most likely soon find their "product juggernauts" a well-used phrase in popular management jargon. David Rouse

Deschamps and Nayak, vice-presidents of the international consulting firm Arthur D. Little, Inc., argue that a company's success depends on its ability to improve its products or services continuously while simultaneously focusing the entire organization on the process of product creation. Product juggernauts are companies that attain market leadership by creating a continuous stream of world-class products through concentrated efforts on product development procedures. The authors describe seven core competencies, including those covering customer service, product creation, and promotion strategies, that are necessary in order to compete successfully in today's global marketplace. They amply illustrate their discussion with examples from global companies and include a "how-to" checklist with each chapter. A useful, hands-on guide describing methods practiced by many world-class organizations, this will be of interest to both scholars and practitioners. Recommended for business collections.?Gary W. White, Pennsylvania State Univ., Harrisburg
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0875843417
• ISBN 13: 9780875843414
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 480