New Product Development in the Software Industry: The Role of Conjoint Analysis

The process of developing, introducing and disseminating a new product is one of the most frequently described and highly formalised subjects in marketing literature (Urban and Hauser 1993; Rogers 1995). The development of a software package, while not an exception to the more general models, presents a number of peculiarities which it is worth investigating (Urban and von Hippel 1988; Carmel 1995; Carmel and Becker 1995). The rate of technological progress in the IT industry is extremely rapid: this structural factor, combined with the low level of entry barriers, leads to intense competition within the sector. In this structural context one key performance factor is the ability to generate innovative ideas and put them into practice in the shortest possible time. It is in fact this time variable which plays a crucial role in securing a sustainable competitive advantage. Consequently, the reduction of time-to-market, i.e. the time lapse between the devising of the product and its marketing, acquires great importance.