New products are the lifeblood of the consumer goods (CG) industry, and innovation alone might be the key to true economic recovery. Successful new product launches are typically one of the top goals for CG executives, yet the consumer goods new product design and development process is one of the most complex due to challenges including global regulations and product proliferation.

The importance of new products can't be underestimated: 25 percent of revenue for the average CG company comes from products introduced in the last three years. The key challenge, however, is that only half of new products meet profit objectives. There are many causes, but low product quality and technical or regulatory problems are reportedly “never” the cause of failure.

According to this research study from Consumer Goods Technology and Sopheon, the front end of the innovation process has a different set of challenges from overall product portfolio management. Despite these challenges, most companies felt that short-term product development activities are somewhat aligned with long-term business growth strategies; only 12 percent thought the gap in their strategic alignment was significant or very large.

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