About this issue

The article by Souder and Chakrabarti reports on a study in an area of increasing importance to R, D, &E. In industry after industry, the R&D dominance of the 1950´s and 1960´s has given way to sales and marketing dominated companies and industries. As a result of many factors — including increased competition in formerly “protected” markets, inflation and cost-price squeeze, foreign intrusion into U.S. domestic markets and traditional overseas markets, government regulation of product characteristics, and other factors — the technical organizations in many large R&D-performing companies are on the defensive vis-à-vis marketing and sales. Reluctantly, many R&D people (and the engineering people who do product improvement and product development) are having to learn more about the marketing aspects of the business and how to “deal with” the marketing people in their organizations. In many cases, corporate long-range planning is dominated by marketing people, and their thinking, terminology, and objectives make up the environment in which R&D has to operate. The study by Souder and Chakrabarti may be useful as a guide to people on both sides of the R&D/marketing interface on how to cooperate with each other.