How Can Managers Best Time the Launch of New Technologies?
New research shows that product launch timing is a social game of poise and tact when engaging with external stakeholders. Offering time signals consideration, respect, and mindfulness. Not offering enough time gets in the way of the public getting to know and feel comfortable around a new technology.
The findings are contained in the recently published paper, “Timing Legitimacy: Identifying the Optimal Moment to Launch Technology in the Market,” which is published in the prestigious Journal of Marketing. The article was co-written by Ela Veresiu, Associate Professor of Marketing at Schulich, together with Thomas Derek Robinson, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Bayes Business School, City, University of London.
The authors find that timing a new technology launch is structured by two dimensions: the degrees of firm-led coordination and stakeholder willingness to change. Combining the two dimensions, they identify antagonistic, synergistic, flexible, and inflexible timing situations that managers can face.
“Knowing the characteristics of each category helps managers devise a strategy leading their new technology to a successful launch,” says Robinson.
On the one hand, antagonistic timing is a delegitimate launch moment that involves low firm-led coordination and low stakeholder willingness to change. Synergistic timing, on the other hand, entails high firm-led coordination and high stakeholder willingness to change resulting in a legitimate launch moment as both parties share norms about the optimal moment for launch. Flexible and inflexible timing are both situations of transition to market readiness led either by stakeholders or the firm.
“Market timing suggests that managers can rebirth “phoenix” markets by revisiting what was previously an undesirable technology,” says Veresiu. “If an innovation’s initial launch fails it can be successfully re-launched at a more opportune moment to arise from its own ashes.”
According to Veresiu, “Owners of failed innovations can benefit from our framework by recouping lost R&D costs, just as it can substantially reduce risk for companies on the forefront of technological innovation.”