A medium-sized bakery company has essentially built its business on the domestic consumer market with fresh bakery products, but has also a single substantial export line in bulk frozen pastry to one overseas country, Malaysia. It wishes to explore the possibility of marketing consumer packs of frozen, fryable, pastry snacks to retailers in the same market.
The bakery has a managerial structure of an owner/managing director, a plant manager, a sales manager and a secretary/accountant. They need their new export product to stabilise and increase their business. They have concluded that the product development needs to be done as well as possible and so they are prepared to commit substantial resources.
The managing director met a Malaysian entrepreneur in an international Rotary gathering, who indicated that he would like to nominate a product, sort out its practicalities and distribute it. The plant manager plays squash with a locally based Malaysian, who has cousins whom he is sure could organise a suitable product and handle it. The secretary thinks they should employ a firm of international accountants, which has set up a management/marketing subsidiary and claims product development expertise, to deliver a complete product, production and marketing package.
There is debate and indecision. The management committee decide to temporise and employ a new product development graduate on a short contract to prepare a structural proposal for a product development team within the company. This team would not only explore and hopefully generate the Malaysian frozen product but would also give the company an enduring capability on which business and product expansion in the future would be built. The product developer is also asked to comment on the general merits of the new proposal weighed against the suggested out-of-house alternatives. The management also want the product developer to develop a plan for the project.