In the past, many leading companies, especially those that led by technical differentiation, found that they could take a cost plus approach to releasing new products because they anticipated profiting from serial generations of products. They believed that being first to market was most important; that in preparing to be first, design teams needed to focus only on selecting and executing well the appropriate bundle of product attributes; and that ultimately, over several iteration of the product, the marketplace would allow the company to earn a reasonable return on total capital employed.