2 New Product Performance: What Distinguishes the Star Products

Better new product performance is important for the survival of the firm. Based on a three-dimensional performance space, 110 new products launched from 55 Australian firms are grouped into five performance clusters. Performance groups from ‘Stars’—the winning group to—‘Dogs’—the worst performance group. The five groups could be well explained by the impact constructs. ‘Stars’; did what one expects for winning projects (product advantage, homework, cross-functional team, reasonable risk level, etc.), ‘Dogs’ were identified as doing nearly everything wrong. The Australian results were tested against international findings and concurred fully. Managerial implications are detailed.