Managing New Products : Using the Map System to Accelerate Growth

The right new products program can produce exponential growth..if all the pieces are in place. And that's what this all-new edition of Tom Kuczmarski's landmark book does. It broadens and deepens the message of previous editions with the introduction of a new approach whose greatest strengths are its simplicity, effectiveness, and proven results.

Called the MAP System, it provides a detailed guide to the secrets of developing a consistent stream of winners--sometimes even the kind of breakthrough product innovation that creates an entire new business unit or industry. It outlines the disciplined approach to creativity and newness that begins by determining customers' needs and wants and by developing the internal culture that encourages the creative decision-making needed to make real innovation happen.

The MAP is a way of organizing for new product innovation by looking differently at the skills and tools that are already in every organization--but too often under-used or not used at all.

Key elements include:

M - for Measure, Manage, and Motivate
A - for Attitude, specifically for developing and Attitude or Culture of Intelligent Risk-Taking
P - for Plan, Process, and People

Arming yourself with the best market information, developing a risk-embracing culture, and organizing around a plan that reflects both: these are the essential elements of new product success.

In this all-new edition, the author shows how to marshal a company's assets for greater growth and profitability. From conducting diagnostic audits to structuring new product blueprints and strategies through successful product launches to measuring and motivating team performance, this book will give you the tools for managing new product risk more creatively, improving your new product hit rates, and managing your programs more effectively.

Thomas Kuczmarski, Senior Partner and President of Kuczmarski & Associates, is a nationally recognized expert in the management of new products and services innovation, and marketing strategy. During his career of helping hundreds of companies grow their businesses, his leading-edge work has forged a new meaning for "innovation" throughout corporate America. His extensive work in advising clients on leadership in innovation serves as the foundation for the firm's values-based leadership expertise. He has successfully developed new products and business strategies for a comprehensive range of industries, from small businesses to Fortune 100 corporations.

Before he founded Kuczmarski & Associates more than a decade ago, he was a Principal at Booz o Allen & Hamilton. While there, Mr. Kuczmarski assisted more than 100 U.S. consumer and industrial goods companies in the areas of marketing, new product development, strategic business analysis and organizational planning. In addition, he led the firm's in-depth research of the best practices employed by more than 700 U.S. firms in their new product management processes. His prior experience as a brand manager at Quaker Oats Company also provided a solid and broad-based foundation unique to his consulting specialty.

Mr. Kuczmarski's book, Managing New Products: The Power of Innovation, 2nd Edition (Prentice-Hall, 1992), is widely regarded as one of the most comprehensive treatises on developing new products. His second book, Values-Based Leadership: Rebuilding Employee Commitment, Productivity and Performance (Prentice-Hall, 1995), is co-authored with Dr. Susan Smith Kuczmarski. The most recent book, Innovation, was co-published in 1995 by NTC Publishing Company and the American Marketing Association. Mr. Kuczmarski is currently working on several other book projects including: Managing new Products: Using the Map System to Accelerate Growth, which will be published by Book Ends in March 2000, and Upfront Stages of Innovation, which will be published by NTC Publishing Group in fall 2000.

He is also extensively published and cited in radio, television and leading-edge national periodicals including: The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Newsweek, Planning Review, Investor's Business Daily, USA Today, Marketing News, Advertising Age, Crain's Chicago Business, CIO Magazine, Sales and Marketing Management, Technology Review, Business Marketing, the Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune. He has a chapter published on new products and services in the Marketing Encyclopedia, a book published by the American Marketing Association. He serves on the editorial review boards for the Journal of Product Innovation Management and the Journal of Consumer Marketing. In addition, Mr. Kuczmarski is a highly regarded speaker on innovation management and leadership, and lectures nationally and internationally to a broad range of corporations and associations.

Mr. Kuczmarski is an Adjunct Professor of New Products and Services at Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management and The University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. He is a member of the board of the Chicago Children's Museum and The Economic Club of Chicago.

He earned an M.B.A. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Business, and holds a master's degree in international affairs from Columbia University's Graduate School of International Affairs, where he was named an International Fellow of the University. He received a B.A. in French.