Managing New Products: The Power of Innovation [Hardcover]

Thomas D. Kuczmarski (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1992

This work focuses on effective practices that the author has used with companies to increase new product success. This second edition has been updated to include information on how to manage new products through economic cycles and on the power of new products to increase shareholder wealth.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Forget line extensions. The future belongs to companies that innovate with truly new products. Thomas Kuczmarski's innovative management system will show you the way." -- Al Ries, Chairman, Ries & Ries and author of The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

"Robust New Product Development is the oxygen that feeds the fire of corporate growth. Kuczmarski's MAP System is a great road map to guide and sustain such processes so that new product ideas bear fruit for the benefit of all the firm's stakeholders." -- Allan J. Magrath, Director Corporate Marketing & New Business Ventures, 3M Canada Company, author of Zero-Defect Marketing

"Successful new products are inspiration and perspiration. Tom Kuczmarski's MAP approach systemizes the inspiration and reduces the perspiration. It's a winner!" -- Don E. Schultz, Professor, Northwestern University and President, Agora, Inc. and author of Integrated Marketing Communications --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

About the Author

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. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall Trade; 2 Sub edition (March 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0135446694
• ISBN-13: 978-0135446690
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,619,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas D. Kuczmarski is the founder, senior partner and president of Kuczmarski & Associates, an innovation management consulting firm. He is a nationally recognized expert in innovation and the development of new products and services.

Over the course of his career he has helped hundreds of clients, ranging from small businesses to Fortune 100 corporations, learn to systematically unlock the value of innovation. He is the author of five books: Managing New Products, Innovation, Innovating The Corporation, Values-Based Leadership, and Apples Are Square and many articles. Mr. Kuczmarski has also taught product and service innovation at Northwestern University's Kellogg Graduate School of Management for 30 years, attracting students and executives from around the world.

He is extensively published and cited in radio, television, and national periodicals including: The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Newsweek, The Today Show, USA Today, Advertising Age, Crain's Chicago Business, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, and many more. Mr. Kuczmarski is a regular columnist for Bloomberg BusinessWeek's online Innovation Channel. Along with Dan Miller, Mr. Kuczmarski co-founded the Chicago Innovation Awards in 2002.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Managing New Products, March 27, 2000

By 

Rich (Evanston, Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Managing New Products: Using the MAP System to Accelerate Growth (Third Edition) (Hardcover)

For any business person this book is a must-buy for several reasons.

First, the form and content reflect the substance. Simply put, most second or third editions of books are warmed-over versions of their predecessors. So, given the speed at which hte world changes, an unchanged third edition is old news.

This one isn't. It presents a totally new way of looking at new product innovation and putting it to work in the real world. The author has actually followed his own advice. One of his key tenets is that "new and improved" line extensions ar destroying many (e.g., packaged goods) companies. He certainly hasn't just changed the "flavor" of this edition with a drop or two of intellectual rose water, a new cover, and shouts of "new,new, new." I own a copy of the previous edition, and this one has at least 60 percent new information.

Second, in addition to the new model the author has developed for this edition, the author has added an entire chapter on Innovation Metrics. There's only one way to know where you are and where you are going--measure it. And he provides several techniques, from the relatively simple to the fairly sophisticated, for "putting a number on" one's new product innovation efforts. This is possibly the most important way to take new product innovation from the realm of unmanageable and idiosyncratic activity that just "happens" to its proper role as a set of specific activities that can be used to manage risk.

Third, I love the simplicity and practicality of the MAP system. At its most basic level it gives a business exec a new way of looking at what his or her business already has--but in a new way. I know lots of workaday buseinss people who are sick to death of getting sucked into "new" systems that, in mid-stream, run out of gas or need big financial suport to stay afloat. Virtually any company of any size already has the basic components of the author's system.

On the other hand, you can continue to peel back layers of the system and get as much complexity or sophistication as you need. The point is that this system begins at a simple, practical level and can grow as the user's needs dictate. Too many business books are built on sytems or "Just take your customer base of 700,000 names and apply formula XYZ or ABC to it." At just about this time, the average person is from you or anyone else." So many of the business models out there are useless to most people or business circumstances because they (1)either haven't been tested in a real business (2) or will only function on a scale beyond the scope of most companies. Kuczmarski's approach is invaluable because it is eminently useful and usable--right now, today--for any level or size of business.

I'm sure it's obvious that I recommend this book highly.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply Elegant, December 14, 2000

By 

John Sanderson (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Managing New Products: Using the MAP System to Accelerate Growth (Third Edition) (Hardcover)

Many people still think that being smart means being obscure or difficult to understand. If you need evidence to prove them wrong, get this book. The author lays out an amazingly simple yet insightful paradigm for thinking about and developing the kinds of dramatic, innovative new products that really matter to a company's present and future growth and success.

My only complaint is that the author shortchanges his own system by calling it "New Products." The scheme he describes so well applies to any kind of new service as well as new product. The most "profound" element of his system is that it is flexible enough to be used for any kind of innovation. Its simplicity and broad applicability are beyond comparison.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Try other books first, October 17, 2000

By 

Paul Clark (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Managing New Products: The Power of Innovation (Hardcover)

This book only brought me a minute degree of value. I would highly recommend seeing other books regarding Innovation that would be more helpful - such as Paths to Innovation by Mowery & Rosenberg.