consumer products innovation cycles

Filed in archive Entrepreneurship on August 16, 2003

A rather new and pretty good research focuses on the very different takeoff cycles for products in various countries. It draws some main conclusions:

• Sales of most new products display a distinct takeoff in various European countries, at an average of 6 years after introduction.


• The time-to-takeoff varies substantially across countries and categories. It is four times shorter for entertainment products than for kitchen & laundry Appliances. It is almost half as long in Scandinavian countries as in Mediterranean countries.


• While culture partially explains inter-country differences in time-to-takeoff, economic factors are neither strong nor robust explanatory factors.


• These results suggest distinct advantages to a waterfall strategy for introducing products in international markets.

For launching a consumer product in Europe it might be favourable to start form Scandinavia and place R&D in Sweden or Denmark. I haven't found such a good research for corporate customer. However my gut feeling is that Germany remains the adoption leader in this isn't it?