| Abstract | Increasing consumer sophistication and the growth of MNC brands in Thailand have put
pressure on the Thai food industry to innovate, as new products become a key source of
competitive advantage. This paper examines the new product development (NPD) process in
the Thai food processing industry, comparing how Thai companies manage the process to how
it works in local branches of major MNCs. In depth interviews are conducted in ten Thai food
companies, five MNCs and a major government research institute with strong involvement in
food products. (For comparison, two major food companies in Taiwan were also interviewed)
The MNCs all market their own branded consumer food products, as do most of the Thai
companies. Some of the Thai companies mainly market their branded product to food service
and catering customers, and some manufacturer to specification for OEM customers. R&D
managers, marketing managers, and manufacturing managers were the people usually
interviewed, but sometimes also CEOs or other top management.
Results show that radical innovations are rare in Thai companies, which mainly aim for minor
or incremental changes in products. MNCs may also do only such simple NPD within
Thailand, but they have access to new products developed worldwide by the MNCs. R&D
within the region can be used to localize products. NPD is organized differently depending on
whether the process is led mainly by marketing, by manufacturing, or by top management.
Thai companies are more likely to have top management dominated NPD, which can
sometimes bring advantage if quick market response is required. However, in large Thai
companies organization of NPD often looks more line that in MN Cs, particularly the stronger
role of marketing in the process. Organization also depends on whether typical life cycle of
products are short or long, with marketing led NPD seeming to work better for short life
products. Better implementation of NPD for Thai food manufacturers will need to focus on
issues related to NPD process and management, R&D and project team structure and
organization, internal linkages within and among R&D project, external linkages with
customers and suppliers, information flow and learning in NPD. Moreover, the study also
proposed some concepts in continuous improvement of NPD process and suggested for local
company to determine their NPD competencies in order to compete successfully in the local
market. |