Managing your career in NpD—
are you “thriving” or just
“surviving”— which will it be?
Steve Treibel, president, Treibel partners, inc. ( streibel@treibelpartners.com)
Steve Treibel
One of the best ways to understand what is going on in a field is to speak to those who do recruiting in it. These professionals see what’s
going on inside corporations, and thus their advice can be beneficial on how practitioners can best position themselves for career ad-
vancement. In this article, the author, who works in the field of NPD recruitment, talks about the structure of the field as well as how
to ensure professional advancement.
Are you in doubt as to whether new product development has come of age as a recognized specialty? Consider this. In April 2010 the University of Southern California announced
the creation of a new Ph.D. Diploma in Innovation. This degree is
designed to complement Ph.D. academic training with practical
skills and creative perspectives to see how their academic expertise
intersects with societal needs.
To those of us already
involved in PDMA, this
is not a surprise. We
have already voted with
our wallets regarding the
value of soaking up all
we can about the art and
science of new product
development and man-
agement.
But what are the keys to career success in the NPD field? In
this article, we will explore the structure of NPD careers and the
factors that separate the top executives from the rest of the pack.
For this article, we will focus on the outward measures of suc-
cess such as promotions and income rather than the more subtle
measures such as personal satisfaction.
“In April 2010 the University of Southern California announced
the creation of a new Ph.D.
Diploma in Innovation.”
NPD organizational structure
I have both good news and bad. I am encouraged by increasing
recognition of the “innovation” function in NPD. A quick check
of my extended LinkedIn U. S. network (roughly 6. 5 million)
showed the following highlighted in the box below. Although the
“innovation” titles are a relatively small percentage of the whole,
this title was almost unheard of until the mid 1990s.
One LinkedIn NPD Network —
Steve Treibel, Recruiter
1,120 Vps/chief innovation Officers/Directors of innovation •
79,000 Vps/Directors of Marketing •
2,500 Vps/Directors of product Marketing •
There is no tidy package in NPD titles
But despite this, there is bad news for people that like things
in a tidy package. NPD organization structure varies greatly
by company size, type
Equally untidy is deter-
mining which functional
group does what. For
example, who is ac-
countable for generating new ideas? Who specifies pricing? Is
it Marketing, Sales, or Product Development? The answer is: “It
depends.”
It may be more helpful to think about the core elements of NPD.
According to Lee Shaeffer, Managing Director of PLM Associates,
core functions of new product development include:
Voice of Customer/Market Research•
Competitive Research•
Engineering/Product Development•
Market Segmentation/Product Positioning•
Pricing •
Product Launch•
Product Support/Installation•
As it turns out, almost all companies do these things either
formally or informally (well, maybe not market research or com-
petitive research). Organizations put these functions in different
reporting structures depending on size, target market, sophisti-
cation, and to some extent, the technical content of the product.
Representative samples of common organizational structures can
be found in the chart on the next page. In fact, more sophisticated
or larger companies may be organized in a way that looks like the
bottom structure in the chart.
I have been most impressed by NPD leaders who recognize the
interdependence of each function in the NPD cycle. For example,
I met a VP of Product Development for a capital equipment com-pany. He was primarily responsible for the product engineering
cycle, but he insisted that his engineering staff consider the sal-ability of the products they were designing. He went so far as to
train the engineers in this thought process and compelled them to
address the salability question in every design presentation. His
objective was to avoid “creeping elegance.” This is the dreadful
“NPD organization structure varies greatly... There is no
“right” structure.”
