DATA POINTS: THE NEW-SKU RATIO.

Measuring the payback from new products can be tricky, but--according to recent PC Data statistics--there's a surprisingly consistent tie between new SKU introduction and market share gains. Drawing on retail sales statistics for 1999, PC Data calculated the percentage of new SKUs in the total product portfolios of 121 companies that launched ten or more new titles (or upgrades) last year. Although a few publishers with high new-product ratios lost market share last year, the overall trend is unambiguous: The companies with the highest new-SKU ratios pulled well ahead of their competitors, while companies with stale product lines usually lost ground. Moreover, the new-SKU ratio seems to be even more important than hefty R&D and marketing...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.

BNET TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

CXO UnpluggedSmart Business interviews on BNET

See and hear how senior level executives across the Asia Pacific are developing smart business ideas across a variety of sectors. The focus is on the future, and on how businesses need to evolve.