Dealing with a nonobvious source of problems related to selecting R&D to meet customers´ future needs: weaknesses within an R&D organization´s and within a marketing organization´s individual operations

The problems related to selecting R&D (research and development) to meet customers´ future needs plague all industrial companies. The most obvious source of these problems is poor coordination between a company´s R&D organization and its marketing organization. An unobvious source of problems related to selecting R&D to meet customers´ future needs, i.e. weaknesses within an R&D organization´s and within a marketing organization´s individual operations, is considered. Three steps are recommended for strengthening an R&D organization´s and a marketing organization´s individual operations. The three steps for both organization´s are: to broaden their members´ ideas about their own responsibilities; to change how people and/or activities are managed; and to get their members to make better efforts to identify customer´s needs