"Failure of Research or Failure of New Product DevelopmentProcessThe turbulent business environment has led firms to have a quandary to have toomany product options. A failure in research activity is directly proportionalto failure ofthe overall process. Marketers face the challenge of achieving the maximum of thelimited resources by adopting techniques that differentiates the factors of successand failure. The level of consumer involvement, to a large extent judges theperformance of the overall process. For instance, NHS is researched and the resultshave shown that out of 286 documents mentioned the consumer involvement inrecognizing or prioritising the explorative topics. (Oliver S. et al; pp 154)As arguedby many, the competitive environment demands a creative and innovative researchtechnique provoking new ideas. What has been observed is the excessive timeperiod spent in grasping information rather formulating the ways to execute them;being subjective instead of being objective. (William E. Ross, Dec. 14, 1979)However, despite of this researchers face the subjectivity issues while carrying outthe research. Firms, consciously or unconsciously proceeds with the process in theway they perceive it but not in the way consumers want it and thus a failure of theNPD process. Ross cautioned the companies to make use of consumer informationto the maximum as the biggest opportunity lies in consumers.The market research activities depend heavily on the size of the firm. A smaller sizedfirm would have limited market, financial resources and customers as compared togiant organization. However, the focus will remain on consumers, irrespective of thesize. Apple`s R&D would be more effective if compared to any newcomer. Forinstance, it spent $4.6 billion in last four years reveals the financial strength of Appleand thus a cost efficient market research can be reflected in the success of theorganization. (Stephan Rosenman, 2010; April 07) The sales climbed to $43 billionin 2009 as compared to $25 in 2006. The financial resource also acts as a potentialin determining the success or failure of an effective market research.However, it maynot necessarily true for big firms only.Marketers and researchers have reported that one reason for the failure of researchactivities is that firms emphasize on theory building instead of theory testing.Research is acknowledged as a complex activity and hence should be carefully25 rather critically tested. (Bonoma, 1985; Parkhe, 1993; Adams et al., 1998) If IBMwould have only emphasized on theory building rather than testing it would haveproduced opposite results to what it has achieved so far. However, studies haveoften reported vague or contradictory results as getting the data and interpreting itaccurately is a difficult task as firms do not report them accurately. (Karen E. Klein,1999; October 30)The composite phenomenon can be deeply understood by gettingphysically and emotionally closer to it through comprehensive interviews.(Carsonand Coviello, 1996; Merriam, 1988)Various industries collect the data through various sources; the reliability of thesources is found to be the major concern of most of the companies. However, theindustry issues are another aspect of consideration. For instance, the consumerscan dictate their desires but the technology has to be specified by the firm. On thesame hand, the technology can be innovated and developed on the basis of theconsumer based research. Most public firms are found to be working in favour of thegeneral public and thus provide lessons to the private corporations. For example, ahospital would exactly provide the facilities or treatment a consumer would want.However, a product industry cannot be compared to health industry butcan learnfrom the experiences and their development process. (Allan Pinches,2007;September 7)26 CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT AND PRODUCT TESTINGA major implication of the research process can be regarded as the conceptdevelopment and hence the product testing. This step has equal importance to theprocess as the process has to the success of the company and the sustainingcompetence in the global market. (Yeoh, 1994; Cozinsen et al., 2000) Once theidea is screened, it has to be given a more formal facade to what is known as“concept testing”. Concept testing is studied to be as vital stage of the overallprocess in creating flourishing new products. (Cooper, 1996; de Brentani andRagot; 1996) Concept testing is tested not only in U.S. and Europe basedcompanies but other parts of the world as well. (Nijssen and Lieshout, 1995;Mahajan and Wind, 1992)Despite of increased usage and its clear objective, it hasnot proved to consistently envisage the market success. As per various researchersthe lack of systematic research and misapplications of the concept testing are themain reasons behind it. Moore (1982, 1985) guidesthe firms to make a strongerunderstanding through a better classification of the test based upon its functionalityand not only upon its results.The visual form of the documented idea is given a formal shape in order for furtherconsideration and development.The consumers are involved to evaluate the productconcept and the producers get an estimate about the potential consumers and theproblems that could arise from the product. Suppose the consumers were notconvinced by the sample, it is more likely to not to purchase the product. As Ozer(1999) states the results reveal the actual scenario of the response that the finalproduct is expected to obtain and thus helps the producers to alter the financial andnon-financial decisions into the product`s development. The various researches have shown the results that reveal the scenario of thecompanies that use the testing concept. For instance, 87% of the Fortune 500 firmsused novel product concept screening and 72% used consumer product tests.(Mahajan and Wind, 1992;649)However, the screening step is given a much higherinclination over the testing procedure.As per the research of the widely used 2427 "