The Role of Advanced R & D

The relationship between advanced research teams and their counterparts in product development is often fraught with challenges. Advanced R & D teams complain that their counterparts in Product Development don't know how to use them effectively and ignore their ideas. "We can't them to take action on our new product ideas - they just want to make more of the same." Product Development teams wonder what all those PhDs are doing up there in their ivory towers. "Why don't they come back down to earth and help us get products out?"

The key is to recognize that these are distinctly different animals, with different objectives. The key objective of Advanced R&D is to deepen the company's technical knowledge in ways that lead to breakthrough products and new business models. The key objective of Product Development is to use the company's technical knowledge base to turn out a stream of new products in response to the market's needs (spoken and unspoken).

Product Development stays focused on the next few seasons or market window. Advanced R & D looks out for the long term future of the company. A company in a rapidly evolving market that plans to be in business for more than a few years needs both functions, because breakthroughs rarely come on schedule.

The tension between Advanced R & D and Product Development is healthy for the company: it keeps Advanced R & D's big ideas grounded in the realities of the market, and it helps ensure that Product Development can incorporate new technology to address market needs with much less technical risk or invention-on-schedule.

In short, Product Development responds to the market while Advanced R & D develops the company's ability to respond.