New Product Forecasting: An Applied Approach

Concise and jargon free, this is a one-step primer on the tools and techniques of forecasting new product development. Equally useful for students and professionals, the book is generously illustrated, and features numerous current real-world industry cases and examples. Part I covers the basic foundations and processes of new product forecasting, and links forecasting to the broader processes of new product development and sales and operations planning. Part II includes detailed, step-by-step techniques of new product forecasting, from judgmental techniques to regression analysis. Each chapter in this section begins with the most basic techniques, then progresses to more advanced levels. Part III addresses managerial considerations of new product forecasting, including postlaunch issues such as cannibalization and supercession. The final chapter presents an important set of industry best practices and benchmarks.

Kenneth B. Kahn (BIE, Georgia Institute of Technology; MSIE, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; Ph.D. in Marketing, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) is a tenured Associate Professor of Marketing and a College of Business Administration Reagan Scholar in the Department of Marketing and Logistics at the University of Tennessee. His teaching and research interests concern product development, product management, and forecasting of existing and new products. He has published in a variety of journals, including the Journal of Product Innovation Management, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Business Forecasting, Marketing Management, and R&D Management. He is the author of the book Product Planning Essentials and editor of the PDMA Handbook on New Product Development, 2nd edition.Dr. Kahn is cofounding Director of the University of Tennessee’s Sales Forecasting Management Forum, which specializes in education and research involving market analysis and sales forecasting. He is also the current Vice President of Publications for the Product Development and Management Association (www.pdma.org). Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Tennessee, Dr. Kahn was Director of Georgia Tech’s Marketing Analysis Laboratory and cofounder of Georgia Tech’s Collaborative Product Development Laboratory, both of which conducted corporate-sponsored research.Dr. Kahn’s industrial experience includes serving as an industrial engineer and project engineer for the Weyerhaeuser Company and a manufacturing engineer for Respironics, Inc. He has consulted with and facilitated benchmarking sessions with numerous companies, including 3M, Acco Brands, Amgen, Biolab, Borden, Cargill, Cheps USA, Ciba Specialty Chemicals, Coca-Cola, Corning, Enterasys Networks, Gillette, Hanes/L’eggs, Hewlett-Packard, Lifescan, Mary Kay Cosmetics, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, Miller Brewing Company, Moen, Motorola, Mrs. Smith’s Bakeries, Nabisco, Pharmavite, Schering-Plough, SmithKline Beecham, Springs Industries, Symbol Technologies, Tropicana, Unilever, and Xerox.