Many prior studies have shown that a successful new product development requires the integration among marketing, R&D, production in NPD process. This thesis is a study of effective integration approaches in NPD process. Recognizing the benefits of such integration, many scholars have studied the relationship between the integration and new product success, and found that the integration among marketing, R&D, production was one of the most important success factors. So, Firms should consider the integration as KSF(Key Success Factor) for developing new products.
To get the effective ways integrating and implementing them, this study suggests research questions as follows:
1) How much are the marketing, R&D, production commonly perceiving the need of integration required in NPD process ?
2) What is the relation between the environmental uncertainty and organizational strategy, and the perceived need for the integration ?
3) How do the organizational and individual factors affect the degree of integration achieved?
4) What are the effects of the integration on the new product success in NPD process?
The findings of this study are as follows:
1. An NPD organization should evaluate the project uncertainty and organizational strategy to determine the need of integration required so that the organization can prepare appropriate means by which it increases the degree of integration acquired.
2. Organizational factors(organizational structure, organizational system, top management support) and individual factors(project leadership, communication, sociocultural differences) should be well managed for successful NPD process.
3. To achieve functional integration:
1) Cross-functional team is proved very effective in NPD process.
2) Joint reward system for the performance of project team may enhance the degree of the integration.
3) Top management should be more involved in the early part of the project to make a substantial impact on the eventual outcome.
4) Project team leaders play very important role in NPD process, so they should be elected by top management to have power and responsibility for their projects.
5) Using formal integrative processes, the level of cooperation and communication can be increased.
Consequently, firms considering NPD should make efforts to get efficient integration approaches which increase the possibility of new product success.
