مشتری مداری برای کاهش زمان ورود به بازار محصولات جدید: پیاده سازی فناوری اطلاعات به عنوان یک دارایی مکمل

To extend new product development (NPD) research, this study proposes and tests a theory of complementarities between information technology (IT) implementation and customer orientation. In addition, this study provides a fine-grained analysis of associations between various aspects of customer orientation and time-to-market of new products. The data comes from 176 manufacturing companies in China. This study tests the hypotheses that three dimensions of customer orientation shorten time-to-market of new products, and IT implementation moderates the relationship between customer orientation and time-to-market of new products. Regression results indicate that (1) customer focus, customer involvement and communication with customers have significantly negative effects on time-to-market of new products; (2) IT implementation plays a role of complementary asset to customer involvement and communication with customers. We discuss the implications of the findings for a contingency theory of time-to-market reduction through customer orientation, for future research and for managerial practices.

With the shortening of product life cycles and the saturation of the current market, the traditional competitive advantages of manufacturing firms, such as cost and quality are being eroded. New product development (NPD) speed is becoming increasingly important for organizations to gain and maintain a competitive advantage in the marketplace and hence sustain high levels of profits and long-term competitiveness (Afonso, Nunes, Paisana, & Braga, 2008). The belief that reduction in time-to-market of new products can build a competitive advantage stems from the notion that speed can facilitate either first-mover or fast-follower strategies (Sánchez & Pérez, 2003b). These perspectives represent a shift in management focus from a more-traditional cost or quality orientation to a time orientation suitable for a fast-changing business environment. Managing time may enable companies not only to reduce their costs but also to offer a broad product range and upgrade the technology platform of their products. In this paper, we will investigate how customer orientation decreases time-to-market and the complementary roles of IT implementation. Prior studies have investigated different factors influencing time-to-market of new products. Some theorists focus on strategic characteristics and argue that emphasis on speed, top management support and goal clarity provides the guidance and broad objective for NPD activities, and reflects an innovation strategy that aims to shorten the NPD cycle (Kessler & Chakrabarti, 1996). Other scholars have emphasized the role of project team structure in supporting NPD. Team leaders and members, team empowerment and co-location have been identified to facilitate NPD performance (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1995). Further, the roles of project characteristics (newness and complexity) were also studied. Project characteristics can limit the uncertainty and complexity of NPD projects to facilitate NPD speed. For example, to shorten the NPD cycle, firms tend to pursue incremental products and simple projects to reduce design modifications and developmental errors associated with the development of revolutionary and complex products. While these studies contribute substantially to a nascent understanding of time-to-market of new products, the roles of customer orientation have been neglected. Besides the direct roles in improving business performance (Deshpandé et al., 1993, Narver and Slater, 1990 and Slater and Narver, 1994), customer orientation likely produces important consequences for time-to-market of new products (Hooley & Theoharakis, 2008). Treacy and Wiersema (1993) suggested that a close customer relationship could minimize time-to-market of new products. Joshi and Sharma (2004) argued that customers possess knowledge and information in terms of their needs and preferences and gaining an understanding of these needs and preferences can enhance NPD performance. Fang, Palmatier, and Evans (2008) also proposed that customer involvement can improve the effectiveness of the product development process. These findings imply that customer orientation is necessary for developing products on time. However, empirical studies have reported non-significant or even negative direct effects of customer orientation on time-to-market of new products (Campbell and Cooper, 1999 and Datar et al., 1997). The discrepant findings in the literature suggest the need to identify contingencies that may govern customer orientation–time-to-market of new products relationship. An efficient information system can help companies to build a mechanism allowing staff and customers to share their expertise and knowledge and to store, extract and integrate knowledge from customers for NPD (Tseng, 2009). Considering the important role in facilitating customer orientation, we focus on an important yet neglected factor: IT implementation in this study. This study focuses on the knowledge-based view (KBV) and complementary assets in an effort to place customer orientation, IT implementation and time-to-market of new products in a theoretical context. Proposed by Grant (1996), KBV indicates that firms can implement demand management in pursuit of a competitive advantage through customer orientation. Complementary assets refer to resources or capabilities that allow organizations to capture the profits associated with a strategy, technology or innovation (Teece, 1986). Complementary assets are required when firms attempt to develop new products or markets. Resources and capabilities involved in forming complementary assets may be physical, human or organizational (Barney, 1991). Examples of complementary assets discussed in the literature include process innovation and implementation capability, workforce organization and training, and R&D, production and marketing capabilities (Swink & Nair, 2007). We address two research questions in this study. First, what is the effect of different dimensions of customer orientation on time-to-market of new products? Second, how does IT implementation moderate the relationship between customer orientation and time-to-market of new products? The answers to these questions will contribute to both theory and practice. Many manufacturing companies have invested heavily into developing customer relationships over the last three decades. Drawing upon the notion of complementary assets, we extend KBV, and offer empirical evidence on how to create competitive advantages through combining customer orientation and IT implementation. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: in the next section, we review the literature on customer orientation, time-to-market of new products and complementary assets. Based on the literature review, research hypotheses are proposed. In Section 3, data collection, respondent profiles and measurement development are described. The research analyses and results, which include main effects and moderating effects of IT implementation, are presented in Section 4. Section 5 discusses the research results. In the closing section, we present the overall conclusions, managerial implications, limitations and directions for future research.

This study makes three theoretical contributions to the existing literature. First, our research extends the customer orientation literature by describing three dimensions of customer orientation and empirically testing their effect on time-to-market of new products. While most previous studies investigated customer orientation as a unidimensional construct, we break it into customer focus, customer involvement and communication with customers. Thus, our findings provide preliminary evidence of the links between various dimensions of customer orientation and time-to-market of new products. Second, this research helps to explain the mixed findings in previous literature and enhances our understanding on the relationship between customer orientation and time-to-market of new products. In including IT implementation as a complementary asset, this study complements previous research and lays the foundations for the development of a contingency theory of customer orientation. Our third contribution lies in testing the theoretical model using data collected from Chinese manufacturing companies. This study enriches the research on customer orientation and operations management in China. Empirically investigating customer orientation in China is important because of its unique culture and important role in global business. However, research on customer orientation in China has received less attention. This study provides a timely and insightful contribution for understanding whether and under what conditions customer orientation can shorten time-to-market of new products in the context of China. The findings of this study have important implications for managerial practice. First, along with the increasing intensity of market competition, introducing new products to market quickly is becoming more and more important to firms. This study indicates that different dimensions of customer orientation can help shorten time-to-market of new products. The practical value of these findings lies in a better understanding of how customer orientation affects time-to-market of new products. Managers should be aware of the importance of customer orientation as it is an important factor for shortening time-to-market of new products. Therefore, customer orientation investments would support a time-based NPD strategy. Second, this study finds that IT implementation enhances customer orientation-driven capabilities of shortening time-to-market of new products. Firms can introduce new products to market more quickly if they have an effective IT implementation. Managers need to invest in IT systems in order to minimize time-to-market of new product through customer involvement and timely communication with customers. Thus, even if competitors can imitate the customer orientation, they will not be able to gain competitive advantage from this imitation if they do not implement IT systems well. Third, firms cannot achieve shorter time-to-market of new products through IT implementation directly. This finding encourages executives to weigh the risks of investing in IT systems. This study does not support the notion that firms with a high level of IT implementation can shorten time-to-market of new products directly. We speculate that risks associated with IT implementation are probably tied to suboptimal implementation or poorly developed supporting resources. History, culture, structure and leadership may also be important factors that explain why some firms are more adept at IT implementation than others. As such, this type of exploration should be managed very carefully.