ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the important link between strategic planning and product planning. Strategy is an important part of the product planning process. One way to illustrate the strategic planning process is to portray as a pyramid, with company mission at the top of the pyramid, company objectives at the next level, and company goals, strategies, and programs at the lowest level. New product strategy is much broader when taking into account the different types of new products possible across the dimensions of type of market to be served such as current or new market and type of technology such as current or new technology. A product development strategy derives from an objective to capitalize on existing product technology and offer more options to the customer base. The Product Development Management Association (PDMA) periodically surveys its members and publishes data for constructing a standard decay curve. The decay curve can be used as a benchmark to compare with industry decay curves.
