The use of marketing research during NPD process

The use of marketing research is going to be increased by many companies. Marketing research is used for different decision-makings and requirements of organizations. Furthermore, One of the most important missions in each firm is to identify a new product and to be able to manage the process of new product development and launch it to the markets in the eligible time and cost in order to sustain in the markets. The entire business environment is experiencing major global changes that have a direct impact on companies and their consumers. Competition is intensifying and generating changes in the way that consumers make purchase decision. Nowadays, the marketing research is the essential activity in large and small companies, which managers avoid to make decision without it. On the other hand, these companies need to develop new products or modify the current products in order to remain in the market and retain their market share. New product success almost always is linked to an understanding of customers’ needs and wants. In fact, evidence suggests that new product failure often can be attributed to a lack of marketing research. This Thesis aims to study the use of marketing research though IKCo’s (the biggest car manufacturer in the Middle East) new product development process. By exploring, describing and somewhat explaining IKCo’s objective of marketing research during new product development (NPD) process as well as how this process should be implementing with comparison of the literature review and also based on view points of interviewee. Three major finding was made. Firstly, The IKCo’s new product development has not well developed based on the information achieved from marketing research. Secondly, IKCo’s managers accept that marketing research is an essential tool for new product development success. Thirdly, today IKCo mostly use marketing research as a sales and marketing support system during some of NPD phases, which should be revised to cover the whole process of new product development.Validerat; 20101217 (root