Product Juggernauts: How Companies Mobilize to Generate a Stream of Market Winners [Hardcover]

Jean-Philippe Deschamps (Author), P. Ranganath Nayak (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0875843417 | ISBN-13: 978-0875843414 | Publication Date: March 1, 1995

According to the authors, how fast and how often a company can develop new products can determine whether or not it survives. Nayak and Deschamps integrate activities in R & D, strategy, product development, and marketing to form a comprehensive view of the product creation process that leads to value creation for three stakeholder groups - employees, customers, and owners. They first identify seven core competencies of a world-class product creation process: understanding customers, developing a product strategy and portfolio, using a disciplined development process, incorporating concepts of program management, encouraging effective teamwork, marshaling resources, and facilitating the process. The book concludes by showing managers how to mobilize for large-scale and continuous organizational change and improvement.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Deschamps and Nayak, vice-presidents of the international consulting firm Arthur D. Little, Inc., argue that a company's success depends on its ability to improve its products or services continuously while simultaneously focusing the entire organization on the process of product creation. Product juggernauts are companies that attain market leadership by creating a continuous stream of world-class products through concentrated efforts on product development procedures. The authors describe seven core competencies, including those covering customer service, product creation, and promotion strategies, that are necessary in order to compete successfully in today's global marketplace. They amply illustrate their discussion with examples from global companies and include a "how-to" checklist with each chapter. A useful, hands-on guide describing methods practiced by many world-class organizations, this will be of interest to both scholars and practitioners. Recommended for business collections.?Gary W. White, Pennsylvania State Univ., Harrisburg
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Two management concepts that have received a lot of attention recently are "virtual corporation" and "continuous improvement." A key component of each is the idea that product development becomes an ongoing and interactive process, with the manufacturer, sales force, and customer all working together to refine, adapt, and improve products and to suggest and create new ones. The authors, both with the prestigious Arthur D. Little consulting firm, call companies that are successful at doing this "product juggernauts." Deschamps and Nayak provide specific, practical advice on how best to organize companies to emulate these juggernauts, using examples such as Phillips, Casio, Rubbermaid, SONY, Lexus, and Braun. The authors will most likely soon find their "product juggernauts" a well-used phrase in popular management jargon. David Rouse

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press (March 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875843417
• ISBN-13: 978-0875843414
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,582,158 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I found the book very informative., November 20, 1998

By 

D. Young (Idaho Falls, Idaho) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Product Juggernauts: How Companies Mobilize to Generate a Stream of Market Winners (Hardcover)

Product Juggernauts is a book not only for corporate executives or senior management. I am a graduate student with little product development experience. However, the product examples that the authors focused on were very insightful to the course material I have been studying. It had better examples and flowed easier than a book we are using in class, "Revolutionizing Product Development: Quantum Leaps in Speed, Efficiency, and Quality," by Steven C. Wheelwright and Kim B. Clark. This book is a must for anyone wanting to learn more about product development.