Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

I think in general it is a very good topic but let's focus it a little better.

There are a bunch of different product categories that fall under that acronym--here's a list from www.fmcgbrands.com which is as good a place as any to help us frame the issue:

Agriculture, Alcohol, Automotive, Children, Computers, Confectionery, Drink, Electronic, Engineering, Fashion, Financial, Food, Furniture, Health, Internet, Medical, Pet, Sport, Telecommunications, Tobacco

The factors that influence product development of a Neopet will be different in many ways (identical in some of course) than those that influence product development of a chew bone for a yorkshire adult terrier or a pickup truck for a Yorkshire adult person.

Perhaps an analysis of those factors might yield an interesting thesis: that some industries although quite disparate have strong similarities in those factors that one might not see without first analyszing and classifying the factors. It would be, for instance, fascinating to discover that health product development and hard liquor product development have most factors in common (don't know if it's the case but it's an interesting notion to me anyway).

But however you angle into the topic, my suggestion remains: focus on a specific FMCG industry rather than FMCG as a thing in and of itself.

I agree with Markitek that more focus is needed:'factors that influence new product development' have been studied by managers and academics for over 3 decades. For an academic dissertation, it is important to generalizable findings, so instead of limited your study to 1 industry, it would indeed be a good idea to analyze similarities over very different product categories. In this age of M&A and consolidation, many large cooperations need to decide how much to standardize their NPD over business units, so your research may help them