The following study deals with a development case of a product that has not been popular in Korea. The main object of the study is to help the high-tech new product development by analyzing the new product development procedure and pointing out the key success factors.
The DVD player development project of company "S" was chosen, since they were able to introduce a DVD player simultaneously with the Japanese competitors, and it bears a significance meaning to the Korean electronics industry.
The structure of the study is as following. First, a research framework was built after literature review on strategy, competence building, and organization. The research framework can be divided into 4 parts; long-term strategy, organization, continual technological learning and complementary assets. The long-term strategy is centered around the successful development of high-technology new product. Projects were established in both the macro and micro organizational environment levels to accomplish the necessary continual technological learning; as complementary assets, competitive advantages such as production, quality and marketing know-how were accumulated as co-specialized assets. The research framework shows the process of how the above 4 parts jointly produce competitive advantage output compared to the competitors, and the case study has been analyzed in depth by summarizing the framework dynamically.
The following is a summary of the study's conclusion.
1. The strategy, macro-organization and micro-organization had great influences on both learning the technology and obtaining a sound result in the new product development.
2. The conclusion indicates that strategic aspects such as a clear target, and long-term learning accumulation work as key success factors in the development of high risk new products with uncertain future.
3. To accomplish a strategy like this, both the macro and micro organizational characteristics are very important. Of the macro level organizational elements, the top management's decision making skills, organization building, and the ability to unite together the different cultures within the organization are keys. On the micro side, creative job characteristics, transformational leadership of the project leader, each member's confidence on the system technology, professional skill, communication pattern, reviews & incentive system, and career development programs play an important role in the success of a new product development project.
4. Building autonomous team, co-locating the various members into a place, and supporting them temporarily by the lightweight team are something to do with stable work accomplishment.
5. Knowledge accumulated through long-term learning process play an important role in the learning of new technology and the internal application of this new technology.
6. Given the same environmental conditions, the top management's strategic intents, actual practice of long-term management plan, and contingency decision making abilities are the keys for a superior competitive edge.
