eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

Increased competition in the global markets has forced companies to develop and launch products faster. This means that companies are likely to see more product transitions where the launch of a new product will impact to the existing portfolio. The purpose of this study was to explore the challenge of transition management from supply chain perspective. The research was practical, geared towards solving a managerial problem of decision making within transition process. The study was motivated by the finding that despite product development has generated a great deal of focus in the academic literature, both transition planning and product elimination have received hardly any.

The main findings of the literature analysis show that successful transition management requires cross-functional co-operation as different functions operate with different drivers. Moreover, the case company analysis showed that a large number of new products do not succeed in the marketplace and that they are removed earlier than planned. Furthermore, two decision making tools were developed and piloted in the case company as it was concluded that such a model could give the possibility to systematize decision making process, reduce manual work and give opportunity to test possible scenarios.