It's an interesting idea, but I wonder if the experience of "early career scientists" is too different in different fields, and different types of company (e.g., startups vs. mid-size vs. multinational vs. gov't labs etc.) to generalize.
I think there is more in common than different, especially in industry, with the classic "marketing and R&D interactions" but yeah I agree I need to figure that out.
Interestingly, when I was in the research arm of a big multinational, I had zero interactions with the marketing people over the ~ 10 years I was there. The products were too complicated and we were just one piece of a larger puzzle.
Yes, I think there are actually two sort of models that have emerged. Going to write about it soon. The first is the one you describe with heavily silo'd R&D/NPD groups that might talk to each other but do not talk to marketing/sales/other functions and then there is the integrated model where R&D/NPD groups interface heavily with the other groups and typically these groups are quite lean. You might have 1-2 FTEs supporting a $70-100 million business. I suspect the mature industries are typically the latter while less mature innovation intensive businesses are the former.
It's an interesting idea, but I wonder if the experience of "early career scientists" is too different in different fields, and different types of company (e.g., startups vs. mid-size vs. multinational vs. gov't labs etc.) to generalize.
I think there is more in common than different, especially in industry, with the classic "marketing and R&D interactions" but yeah I agree I need to figure that out.
Interestingly, when I was in the research arm of a big multinational, I had zero interactions with the marketing people over the ~ 10 years I was there. The products were too complicated and we were just one piece of a larger puzzle.
Yes, I think there are actually two sort of models that have emerged. Going to write about it soon. The first is the one you describe with heavily silo'd R&D/NPD groups that might talk to each other but do not talk to marketing/sales/other functions and then there is the integrated model where R&D/NPD groups interface heavily with the other groups and typically these groups are quite lean. You might have 1-2 FTEs supporting a $70-100 million business. I suspect the mature industries are typically the latter while less mature innovation intensive businesses are the former.