| Abstract [eng] |
“Information technology” (IT) is used in this study to mean any computer, networking, storage, infrastructure, physical devices and software used to create, store, process, exchange and distribute any form of data. As there are advances in the capabilities of IT, companies and businesses involved in the creation of products leverage these capabilities to innovate and create new products. New product development (NPD) is a defined process of developing new products for the market and it is considered the primary step to developing a product. To keep up with the market, firms must continue to innovate and develop new products to meet their customers’ dynamic needs. The Purpose of the thesis: To highlight Information Technology (IT) used in new product development (NPD) process. To meet the aims and objectives of this study, an empirical research by qualitative analysis, using semi-structured interview methodology was conducted with nine start-up product development leaders. The Outcome of the thesis: A conceptual model for the use of IT in NPD was created based on scientific theoretical literatures and the NPD framework for defining the stages of the NPD process developed by Booz, et al (1982). These NPD stages include: New Product Strategy Development, Idea Generation, Screening and Evaluation, Business Analysis, Development, Testing and Commercialization. The study highlighted the importance of IT at each stage of the NPD process and the use of various groups of IT tools in the NPD process as a whole. The study revealed that dependence on IT in NPD increases along the NPD process and the complexity of the IT tools employed also increases, needing more expertise and knowledge to maximise their use. The conducted study further revealed that the development methodology adopted by firms in their NPD activities informed the choice of IT tools they employed in the NPD process. The main limitation of this study is that only start-ups were used to conduct the research. This is a homogeneous group and at such, some findings for the use of IT in NPD within this group may slightly differ from the experiences of mature firms. The thesis consists of seventy-seven (77) pages, excluding annexes. Five (5) tables and five (5) figures were used for illustration. |
