In the quest for successful innovation, the importance of the R&D/marketing interface is virtually unquestioned. For many organizations, however, effective integration of technical and marketing functions is difficult, if not impossible. Despite seemingly widespread understanding of fundamental...

Conventional wisdom might lead us to conclude that the various disciplines involved in product development and management are often at cross-purposes. For example, practitioners from R&D and engineering have been known to suggest that marketing fails to understand the technical trade-offs...