ABSTRACT
In the world of perfectly competitive markets depicted in the neoclassical microeconomic model, new product development would be a straightforward affair. Industrial innovation consists in the production and marketing of variety as each company competes to satisfy customers more completely than do its rivals: the proliferation of product offerings and the evolution of intricate and expensive product testing procedures are inescapable consequences of making variety available. Rockwell and Particelli ascribe this change to the increased sophistication of companies' new product development procedures. Successful new product development depends upon many favourable coincidences. The identification of market need is not, on its own, a sufficient starting point for the corporate innovative process; nor does technological breakthrough alone provide a viable justification for investing in changes to a company's product portfolio. The appropriate strategic framework and properly accommodated to its requirements, the new product development process is capable of reducing the uncertainty which surrounds and permeates corporate innovation.
