The COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine and the current economic instability (inflation, credit lending, energy prices, etc.) in Poland as well as the turbulence in European and global markets have all made the volatility and complexity of the business environment in which modern organisations have to operate extremely apparent. These changes have also brought an unprecedented increase in popularity and research interest in the concept of organisational resilience — understood as the ability to survive in difficult, adverse business circumstances. Organisational resilience is fundamentally related to the market conditions of an organisation’s functioning.

The business environment, defined as VUCA, BANI and sometimes as RUPT, has been considered unpredictable and adverse since the 1960s (Emery & Triest, 1965). This is mainly due to its key characteristic — turbulence (volatility and complexity), as defined by Ansoff (1979). In this situation, one in two companies cannot operate on the market for more than 10 years, one in eight for no more than 30 years and only one in 20 can survive for more than half a century (Fesser, 2011). This means that the average lifespan of an organisation has reduced to around 12 years (Echeverria, 2012). Nevertheless, this does not mean that change causes an organisation to fail. The reasons why companies fail are determined by their inability to cope with change and the resulting loss of competitiveness (Adamson & Steckel, 2018). Some point out that this results from so-called ‘strategic myopia’ (Czakon, 2020).

In this context, the challenge is to build the market resilience of an organisation, understood as the ability to survive and grow in a difficult, adverse business environment. Marketing plays an important role in this process. This role is sometimes referred to as the ‘marketing interface’ (CIM, 2000) and can be considered from the perspective of organisational culture, market strategy and operational activities. The new marketing function addresses the challenge of building an organisation’s market resilience at all these levels. As a result, the purpose of this article which is based on a survey conducted in 2022 among graduates and participants in programmes of the Chartered Institute of Marketing is to identify the role of marketing in the face of the challenges of the contemporary business environment in the context of the requirement for organisations to have market resilience.

The Concept of Market Resilience of Organisations

Effective collision of an organisation with the contemporary business environment depends on the ability to apply various methods of strategic agility, flexibility and adaptability (Holbeche, 2015). Although organisational resilience is directly related to the previously established and developed concepts of the learning organisation (Senge, 1990; Garvin, 1993), flexible and adaptive organisation (Reeves & Deimler, 2011), ambidextrous organisation (Zakrzewska-Bielawska, 2017) and long-lived organisation (De Geus, 2002), the idea of resilience has its origins in the realm of psychotherapy and, as such, has sought answers to questions related to the circumstances of individuals functioning in crisis — questions that would be helpful in ascertaining the degree to which the crisis situation determines the development of our psychophysical capacities, as well as methods that can be deployed to address the limitations observed in such development, vis-a-vis the estimated potential (Rak & Patterson, 1996).

In the management sphere, the idea of resilience emerged in the late 20th and early 21st centuries and describes the organisational, dynamic ability to defend or strengthen the market position in the long term despite an unfavourable, unstable market environment and emerging changes in the business environment. It was developed based on analysis of the sources and causes of organisational failures or setbacks and the occurrence of adverse events leading to them (Sheaffer, Richardson, & Rosenblatt, 1998). This view of organisational resilience highlights its multidimensionality and a high degree of interdisciplinarity. It touches upon the ways in which institutions, teams or individuals behave in situations of crisis or uncertainty (Lee, Vargo, & Seville, 2013).

Market resilience, or organisational resilience, is the ability to recover from a periodic slump or failure, but it additionally encompasses the ability to take adaptive action when signals of change emerge (Hamel & Valikangas, 2003). Organisational resilience is the ability to take swift, creative, situationally appropriate, decisive and transformative actions that minimise the impact of adverse events in the market environment on the organisation (Heifetz, Grashow, & Linsky, 2009). Resilient organisations are able to address significant events that may affect (positively and negatively) the business by having systems in place that enable ‘early warning’ about and anticipation of emerging (internally and externally) opportunities and threats, as well as responding effectively to these events using their resources flexibly and efficiently, at the right time and in the right way. Resilience is, in fact, the ability of an organisation to become independent from the disruptive influence of the business environment in the long term by reading and understanding market changes, thus even anticipating them and continuously reconfiguring resources to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage (Kozielski, 2022).

When adopting this approach and understanding of resilient organisations, several key characteristics of resilient organisations can be identified. These include awareness of market situation and vulnerability management, agile and adaptive capabilities, leadership and organisational culture (McManus, 2008; Vargo & Stephenson, 2010), agile planning, operations, practices (Holbeche, 2015), readiness to change, the agility of operating, management through results and continuous improvement, nurturing collaboration, networking and community (Seville, 2016; Burkett, 2017), and others. When analysing an organisation’s resilience in the market dimension, marketing understood as the organisation’s link to the market becomes a key element.

Market Interface — The New role of Marketing

The ability of an organisation to survive and grow is not dependent on any single department, function or area within the organisation. It results from the interdependent and synergistic cooperation of all spheres of the organisation. Nevertheless, the roles of different areas of the organisation vary. One of the key ones is marketing. The marketing role is comprised of the tasks carried out by the marketing staff, and these pertain to the functions of market analysis, identifying market trends, assessing competitors’ activities or defining the main business opportunities and threats. Therefore, the marketing function constitutes a kind of bridge, link or interface between the organisation and its environment (Kozielski, 2022), to which an overarching role is attributed because of the vastness and deep significance of its contribution towards achieving organisational growth and development (Deloitte, 2007). Obviously, the realisation of this function is conditional on defining the correct place and role of marketing in the organisation. This role should be determined by three dimensions — organisational culture, strategy and operational-tactical activity (Webster, 1992, 2005). Taking this three-dimensional perspective, the role of marketing was defined at the level of organisational culture as ‘customer advocate’, strategy as ‘business owner’ and at the operational-tactical level as
‘professional manager’ (Figure 1).

The role of the customer advocate occupies an essential position in the sphere of organisational culture, operating philosophy or so-called ‘organisational awareness’, which should focus on understanding market processes, market sensitivity and, in particular, the customer and creating ‘win-win’ relationships with them. Customer-centricity is a fairly well-known (Fader, 2020) and accepted concept. At the same time, however, building an organisation that understands the market and the customers and fully implements this approach into its business processes is no longer so common. At the strategy level, marketing is defined as a ‘business owner’, creating solutions (based on a business concept and the corresponding applied model whose commercial viability has been demonstrated) that provide the organisation with a competitive advantage now and in the future. Finally, at the operational-tactical level, marketing should be responsible for professionally executing the market activities related to building and delivering value for customers or, more broadly, stakeholders.

Research Methodology

Organisational market resilience is determined by implementing the marketing function as a market interface. This manifests itself in its role at the level of organisational culture, market strategy and operational-tactical activities. The specifics of the market situation and conditions of competing influence the need to address them through the indicated areas of marketing activity. Among other objectives, the present research aimed to identify the challenges faced by organisations on the Polish market and the main sources of their future growth, and then to relate these to the requirements placed on marketing in this context.

The survey was carried out in the form of a CAWI among middleand senior-level marketing managers of organisations that are active on the Polish market. The invitation to participate was extended to 300 graduates and participants in the programmes of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, of whom 89 responded positively. The structure of the sample is presented in Tables 1 and 2.

The survey instrument was an interview questionnaire consisting of a total of 23 questions and seven demographic questions. Scalebased closed questions and semi-open questions were dominant in the questionnaire. The survey was carried out in November 2022. Pilot surveys preceded the actual surveys, and the interview process itself did not cause any major problems for the respondents.

Challenges of the Contemporary Business Environment

The market resilience of an organisation is the ability to survive and grow in a difficult, adverse business environment. Effective marketing as a market interface is of key importance for building market resilience. As a result, the starting point of the research was to identify the key challenges faced by organisations operating on the Polish market and then to identify the dominant sources of future organisational growth in the context of the new role of marketing indicated in Figure 1.

The first sphere was addressed through a question in which respondents were asked to answer the following: ‘Please rate, on a scale from 1 (not at all concerned) to 5 (most concerned), the following factors, indicating which factors you believe will most strongly and negatively affect (limit the growth of) your company/brand’s operations.’ As shown in Table 3, the key challenges that hinder or may hinder an organisation’s operation on the Polish market and, thus, affect its ability to survive and grow are related to economic, legal and socio-political conditions, as well as to customer behaviour, competitor activity, the actions of business intermediaries and internal factors.

The respondents perceive the main threats in the sphere of the emerging economic recession, including, in particular, the rising costs of operation. In addition, companies’ operations are negatively affected by the war in Ukraine, declining buyer incomes, falling demand, changes in customer behaviour and the actions of competitors. All of these factors must raise concerns about the future. As a result, according to research, today one in five companies operating in Poland already fears bankruptcy and insolvency (BIG InfoMonitor, 2022). At the same time, there were twice as many cases of insolvency in the whole of 2022 when compared to 2021. Experts’ estimates indicated that over 250,000 companies would go bankrupt in Poland throughout 2022 (Kamiński, 2022). In this context, questions must arise about potential sources of growth and areas for creating market resilience.

Sources of Growth and Market Resilience of Organisations and the Role of Marketing

Organisational resilience requires addressing the identified disadvantages of the business environment by taking proactive measures — actions directed at not only defending the current market position but also achieving and sustaining growth. The empirical material collected made it possible to identify quite a long list of activities that companies operating in Poland are undertaking or plan to undertake. The respondents were asked to select growth areas from the proposed cafeteria, along with the option to indicate others. Among the responses, opportunities to expand the scale of operations by entering new markets, a strong brand, relationships with business and trade partners, the innovativeness of the company and the benefits stemming from the application of new technologies come to the fore (Table 4).

At the other extreme are those activities identified the least frequently by respondents as effective methods of addressing the business challenges identified. This category includes competing with price, exploiting competitors’ weaknesses, verifying the cost structure and reducing cost levels. In contrast to the activities that the highest percentage of organisations plan to undertake, those with the lowest acceptance rates are more operational and short-term in nature, with immediate rather than sustainable results.

In the final stage, the actions planned to be taken were mapped to the previously indicated levels of tasks given to marketing in the context of building market-resilient organisations. It can be stated with some caution that the respondents demonstrated a high degree of maturity and business awareness. This is because their plans are dominated by strategic considerations (including expanding the scale of operations by entering new markets, establishing a strong brand presence and adopting a sound system of managing relationships with business and commercial partners), or emerge from a level of organisational culture that focusses on innovation (Table 4) rather than on rote adherence to previously formulated schemes and designs.

Summary

Stating the volatility and complexity of the contemporary business environment qualifies as a truism (Ploszajski, 2005). Nevertheless, it is important to emphasise that the business environment dynamics and complexity are increasing every year and decade. The concept of an organisation’s market resilience-understood as the ability to survive and grow in an adverse business environment-is a response to the conditions in which contemporary businesses operate. The actions taken or planned to be taken as a response to the identified business challenges, as indicated in Table 4, refer to all the roles attributed to marketing as a market interface (described in Figure 1). They touch upon the sphere of organisational culture as well as market strategy and operational activities. However, the ones that come to the fore are those that have a more long-term nature, providing opportunities for growth and offering chances for generating a more sustainable competitive advantage, thereby strengthening the resilience of the organisation.

The degree up to which an organisation is successful in building its market resilience is determined by the extent of effective use of marketing at all the levels describedThis should be done in a synergistic and balanced manner.

Overemphasising one level at the expense of another results in upsetting this balance and limiting the ability to survive and grow. The findings of the surveys confirm that, in practice, marketing managers understand this relationship and plan to undertake activities taking advantage of the role of ‘customer advocate’, ‘business owner’ and ‘professional manager’. A high degree of awareness of customer-centricity that is not translated into strategy or operational activities will produce the same unsatisfactory results as a certain strategic or operational efficiency that does not include taking into account the customer’s interest and point of view.

The market resilience of an organisation should rest on multiple pillars — the willingness to change, the ability to change and the ability to reconfigure resources (Kozielski, 2022). All of these areas, and their integration, require an approach to marketing (and its role) that differs slightly from the traditional one. In examining the suitability of the traditional understanding of the role of marketing in catering to the needs of enterprises seeking to establish the required level of market resilience in themselves, we encounter several difficulties requiring to be redressed; among these are the lack of a clearly defined objective, low effectiveness, customer appropriation, focus on operational issues, poor internal communication and financial illiteracy. This indicates the need to seek a new approach to marketing. It may not even be a new approach, but rather one that is holistic and based on the internal and external integrity of philosophy, strategy and instruments. On the one hand, of course, marketing and its role in the organisation should not be excessively glorified. On the other hand, it cannot be depreciated or underestimated. However, just as it is accepted that the rules of management are changing and the sustainability of competitive advantage is no longer an unquestioned myth (McGrath, 2013), marketing should keep up with the demands placed on it. The roles of marketing identified in this article are a voice in the discussion on the evolution of marketing and the function it should play in building organisations capable of survival and growth.

Funding

The research presented in this article was conducted under the directions of the author and funded by the Accredited Study and Exam Center of The Chartered Institute of Marketing (questus).

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New product competitiveness has important concern for industry and is decided by the interaction of marketing, finance, distribution and engineering activity with the market environment. This paper describes the characteristics of new product competitiveness in the market. The new product and market competitiveness in the field of new product strategy can be assessed at different levels-macro, meso, micro. This evaluation requires the use of appropriate measures, indicators and parameters (Juchniewicz & Grzybowska, 2010, p. 11). In particular, resolving the problem of measuring new product effects at micro level requires the availability of analytical tools that enable measurement (Wodecka-Hyjek, 2013; Hervas-Oliver, Sempere-Ripoll, Boronat-Moll, & Rojas-Alvarado, 2018). Information value and the effectiveness of monitoring of new product strategy and new product development process (NPDP) will depend on the adequacy of the metrics and parameters used. The most frequently and widely used are financial measures, on the basis of which companies exercise management control over organisational efficiency (Reinertsen & Smith, 2001; Carboni & Russu, 2018). Revenues, profits and other financial effects can be subject to manipulations (reducing companies’ expenditure on research and development [R&E] and marketing, and falsification and concealment of information). So the problem concerns what happens over time when the effects of these ‘savings’ reveal a drop in new product competitiveness, and there is a decrease in the level of success of new products introduced on the market (Rutkowski, 2007).

Although expenditure on R&E is a key indicator of innovativeness, scientists have found ambiguous results regarding its effect on new product strategy and company performance. Researchers claim that variations in R&D effectiveness can be explained by changes in a company’s social system, in its new product and innovation management process. It is still unclear how innovation management influences R&D effectiveness in terms of NPDP and its maturity (Heij, Volberda, Van den Bosch, & Hollen, 2020). Managers, in response, took regulatory actions to increase new product market security and ensure sustainable development (Wheelwright & Clark, 1992; Cooper, 1993, 2019, 2021; Wu, Kefan, Gang, & Ping, 2010; Walker, 2013).

Reports from the literature on new product strategy effects, and the associated success and failure factors, contain conclusions describing critical and important issues in the NPDP. Empirical research reveals that the new product development (NPD) success rate is still at a low level and it depends on the level of NPDP maturity (Crawford, 1979; Griffin & Page, 1996; Stevens & Burley, 1997; Cooper & Edgett, 2008; PDMA, 2012; Lee & Markham, 2016; Rutkowski, 2022).

Efficiency in the area of new product strategy is defined by multiple factors, determinants and parameters; among these, one of the key ones is the competitiveness of the new product that is produced and distributed. Ultimately, in the aggregate of things, a competitive new product affects the competitive position of the company on the market.

Use of market share or relative market share measures are traditional approaches to defining new product competitiveness or market position. These measures to some extent characterise state of a company and its competitive practices. An important role in defining a company’s situation is played by the level of novelty and quality of the new competitive product. Distinguishing participants by the market share enables them to be assigned certain roles, e.g. leader or pretendent (Tyunyukova, Ruban, & Burovtsev, 2018). The results of empirical research also indicate that the market and innovation orientation is positively related to market performance of a new product. The results also show that NPD performance is highest when the market orientation and maturity of the relationship network are at a high level, which supports the proposed three-way interaction (Mu, Thomas, Peng, & Di Benedetto, 2017). So, the new product competitiveness levels for companies of different industries serve as the key factors for their success or failure on the market.

The Measures of New Product Strategy in Competitive Market

The difficulties in developing an industry standard for the success or failure of a new product can be cited. There is no appropriate consistency in defining the new product success or failure level. Each new product must have a specific strategic goal or goals. After fulfilling this goal, e.g. it can be removed from the product line. So, it was a strategic success from company’s point of view, not a failure, even though the new product was removed from the market, and it may be said that the removal would then be part of an overall strategic development.

Since the 1960s, various phenomena in NPDP have been analysed in the available literature, and the focus of research is shifting from defining the right process to ensuring its proper implementation, better management, better measurement and continuous improvement
(Rutkowski, 2007, 2021). The key factor of new product success is choice of the right new product strategy under the appropriate marketing strategy and presence of competitive advantage related either to the company or to its new product. Managers should take steps to ensure that such an advantage is effectively protected by copyright or patents, and that there are instituted measures that would effectively prevent, or at least deter and discourage, competitors from easily copying it. The competitive advantage of a company’s new product can be represented in many ways, but most of all it consists in the features or attributes of the new product, unnoticed by competitors (Thompson, Peteraf, Gamble, & Strickland, 2016). New product competitiveness is the parameter that indicates presence of such peculiarities and allows forecasting the future success of marketing activities of a company related to a new product strategy.

Table 1 presents selected goals of a new product strategy, which are of different financial, marketing (market) and technological nature and contain criteria in the sense that they determine the overall level of a new product’s success or failure on the market. On the other hand, the level of a new product’s success or failure on the market should be treated as a general measure of the company’s competitiveness level in the field of new product strategy, in particular the effectiveness of NPD strategy. Table 1 includes both the measures of competence and
competitiveness in achieving specific goals in NPDP (House-Price model), and the measures related to the level of achieving goals of new products after the period of commercialisation and introduction on market (Rutkowski, 2021).

Thus, currently provided research and available knowledge point out that there is no ideal process for developing a new product, as evidenced by the longstanding relatively high rate of new product failure or partial failure on the market (Castellion & Markham, 2013; Rutkowski, 2016, 2022; Cooper, 2017). Table 2 presents new products’ success or failure rates by sector/industry. For example, consumer goods and services show a lower rate of success than the software or healthcare sectors.

The empirical studies conducted so far indicate that the implementation, realisation and control of a new product strategy should be undertaken with particular care in a company, in order to ensure efficient management of the new product offer, including appropriate coordination, integration and communication link with the existing business processes, and to achieve the goals for which this strategy is implemented (Engelman, Fracasso, Schmidt, & Zen, 2017). However, a major problem in determining the success of individual outputs is the multidimensionality of NPD results (Rutkowski, 2016).

Quantitative Rates to Assess Success Level of Project Teams in New Product Strategy

New product competitiveness or product competitiveness has been the subject of debate by academics and practitioners over many years (Takei, 1985; Oral & Kettani, 2009; Roostika, Wahyuningsih, & Haryono, 2015). There are some aspects or problems that have not been resolved due to the differing purposes of research. The question of quantitative assessment of new product competitiveness is always relevant for companies in order to determine new product strategy and functional marketing strategy, in that it enables them to arrive at decisions concerning an increase or expansion in their market positions.

An analysis of scientific publications reveals some methods and concepts for the evaluation of new product competitiveness. The main approaches may be summarised as follows (Shpak, Seliuchenko, Kharchuk, Kosar, & Sroka, 2019):

(1) Methodology of new product competitiveness evaluation through calculating its ranks and weights. According to this approach, a new product rating is dependent on the quality indicators of the new product.
(2) Methodology of the evaluation of new product competitiveness through the volume of sales. This approach assumes that the volume of sales reflects market demand (customer demand), which is why it might be the most significant criteria for the product’s competitiveness. Under modern conditions, a high volume of sales might be the result of a weak competitive environment and the absence of similar new products on the market.
(3) Methodology of the evaluation of new product competitiveness through a complex index with multiple variables. According to this approach, a complex index of new product competitiveness should include a set of partial indicators that generalise the following characteristics of new product competitiveness: customer requirements, technical
requirements and enterprise expenses.
(4) Methodology of the prediction index of competitive strength of brands based on fuzzy logic, which is based on expert knowledge bases (quality of the brand product, image of the brand product, and service connected with the brand product).

When assessing a new product strategy effects, the most useful financial measure is profit level set for a given project. Among classic marketing rates, measures of level of satisfaction and acceptance of the new product offer by clients, as well as market share index, are characterised by relatively high usability. Nevertheless, assessment based on profit level offers a useful measure reflecting the efficiency of the development and commercialisation processes and efficiency of a new product on the market.

The measures of success or failure in implementation of a new product strategy, which are used by companies, are reactive in nature. Marketing decision support systems should be more proactive from managers’ point of view (Rutkowski, 2021).

Quantitative indicators can be the basis for analysis of economic, financial and technological potential and the innovative marketing strength of companies. The values of these indicators also reflect the directions of enterprises’ conduct in NPDP and technologies, as well as in other areas of innovative activity (processes, management, organisation, sales and marketing). Moreover, these indicators inform managers about the strength of linking marketing, finance and technology with the effectiveness of new product strategy.

In last decade, a new company paradigm has arisen, which assumes that resources of marketing, organisational and technological knowledge are in central importance for the value of a company. This new way of thinking makes it necessary to formulate a new product strategy at three levels (Kasprzak & Pelc, 2012):

• shaping the company’s competencies, reflecting technological knowledge resources;
• R&E, being the sources of knowledge and new technological solutions for products and processes; and
• mastering marketing, technological processes, product manufacturing and distribution systems as tools of competition and competitiveness.

These three levels of new product strategy formulation require prognostic recognition, strategic analysis of a different nature and efficient marketing decision support systems.

Measures of New Product Competitiveness as Effects of New Product Strategy

In the scientific publications, as well as in statistical sources (Commission Regulation [EC] No. 1450/2004 of 13 August 2004), among many indicators used to compare and determine the change trends in marketing and technological strategies of various industries and companies, the following measures of enterprises’ effects in the area of new product strategy and intellectual property protection are particularly useful (OECD/Eurostat, 2018; Grzegorczyk & Głowiński, 2020):

• innovative activity intensity (IAI), research and development intensity (RDI), new products marketing intensity (NPMI);
• engagement to innovation (IE), R&E and marketing of new products (NPME)-the degree of development of intellectual resources in relation to production investments;
• new product sales index-marketing product offer renewal (NPS);
• patent activity index (PAI); and
• inventive activity index (IVAI).

Strong changes in these indicators reflect problems with market position stabilisation of a company or the industry. The author assumes that the measure of intensity of competition on the new products’ market is the indicator expressed by the formula (Rutkowski, 2021):

where SR_(u,s) denotes the rate of competition (according to the share of sales [u] or sales [s]) in the new products market; SB_NPi the share of sales of the i-th new product (type, line) in the industry in the total sales value of products in a given industry (or WSB_NPi the sales value of the i-th new product [product type, product line] by all companies in a given industry); and SP_NPi represents the share of sales of the i-th new product (type, line) in a given company in the total sales value in a given industry (or WSP_NPi the sales value of the i-th new product [type, line] in a given company).

Additionally, SB_NPi – SP_NPi > 0; WSB_NPi – WSP_NPi > 0; and SR_(u,s) < 0.5, 0.5 ≤ ≤ SR_(u,s) < 0.65, 0.65 ≤ SR_(u,s) < 0.80, 0.80 ≤ SR_(u,s) < 0.95, and 0.95 ≤ ≤ SR_(u,s) < 1.0, respectively, indicate very low, weak, average, strong, and very strong intensity of competition on the new products market.

The index of the intensity of competition of a new product offer on the market (SR) reflects the level of competitiveness of a new product offer of a given company or industry. It basically determines the ability of the company’s new market offer to participate in smooth adjustment processes in the changing market conditions. It shows how companies compete on the market of new products for the favour of customers, and is helpful in indicating the degree of customer acceptance of the new product offer. Therefore, this index shows the ability to survive on the market, as well as the ability to develop the company under certain conditions of competition (Rutkowski, 2021). Information about the value of new products sales in the market is generally more accessible than information about the quantity of new products sales, which is very difficult to obtain.

To empower itself to undertake projects involving new products with a high probability of success in the future, the company must monitor internal NPDPs and the situation prevailing in the marketing environment. Thus, it is important to determine the metrics/indicators/parameters that can be used by these companies to measure the competitiveness level of a new product. The use of indicators tends to bring better analytical capacity in management information system and marketing decision support system, regardless of the target industry (Zizlavsky, 2016).

The parameter of new product competitiveness on market is a much broader concept, and it may vary significantly for the same new product quality, depending on the market state, competitors’ activities, their marketing strategies and appearance of new products in the studied product line (Tyunyukova et al., 2018). Nevertheless, price, costs, quality and technical level of the new product are inherent parts of competitiveness and shall be accounted for in its evaluation. However, the overall new product attractiveness is defined by the customer. The main groups of parameters accounted when evaluating new product competitiveness are:

1. Economic (costs associated with purchase, transportation to the place of operation, installation, and irrecoverable customs duties and other taxes that have to be borne);
2. Quality systems standards (compliance with the existing regulations, compliance with technical specifications, compliance with the contract, compliance with the standards — ISO);
3. Technical (product parameters and properties, usability, service life); 4. Operational (reliability, service ability, raw materials, other materials, electric power, maintenance);
5. Ergonomic (hygienic, anthropometric, psycho-physiological, psychological); 6. Aesthetic (harmony of shape, rationality of shape, preservation of saleable condition, quality of fabrication); and
7. Marketing (price level, efficiency of distribution, effectiveness of promotion and communication systems, brand strength and
awareness).

In the process of managing the competitiveness of new products on the market, an important issue is to establish the degree of influence of each of factors on the level of competitiveness. Therefore, the selection of the most important of them at a certain stage of the integrated product’s life cycle not only allows its quality to be improved but also enables changes in market conditions with respect to properties and characteristics to be considered, reduction in production costs and improvement in the price-quality ratio (Vashkiv, 2020). The results of a study of customer needs and market requirements constitute the basis for assessing the competitiveness of new products.

Based on the work of Tyunyukov and others, the author proposes the following formula for determining the competitiveness of a new product on the market. Actions are related to selection of the above-mentioned parameters of the evaluated new product, selection of the reference sample with ideal parameters and comparison of the surveyed sample with the reference one. All methods applied for comparing the samples can be categorised by the parameter of qualitative or quantitative research of competitiveness. Combined evaluation methods are represented by assessments (obtained from experts and customers by surveys) transformed into quantitative parameters using mathematical and statistical tools. Quantitative assessment is usually performed by calculating single, group and integral indices (Gabrusewicz, 2014). The subsequent actions in analytical process are related to selection of meaningful parameters of the new product in question, selection of the reference sample with ideal parameters and comparison of the researched sample with the reference one. All methods applied for comparing the samples can be categorised by the parameter of qualitative or quantitative evaluation of competitiveness. Combined evaluation methods are represented by assessments (obtained by means of surveying experts and customers) transformed into quantitative parameters using certain mathematical and statistical tools.

Quantitative assessment is usually performed by calculating single, group and integral indices.

New product single index is defined by the formula:

where NPSI represents the single parameter index; Pl the parameter level for the surveyed new product; and PL100 the parameter level for the reference new product sample, which satisfies the need in 100%.

After finding single parameter indices, a group parameter GPi can be calculated by Formula (2), which enables single indices to be integrated for a uniform group of parameters-economic, standard, technical, operational, ergonomic, aesthetic and marketing. Single indices can be integrated using factor weight set during customer or expert surveys.

where NPGP represents the group parameter; F_i the factor weight in group parameter (e.g. marketing : price); and g_i the single index.
Integral index is calculated in the format ‘selected group of parameters, e.g. technical-tech/marketing-mark parameters’ (Formula [3]), which in fact provides the parameter evaluation in relation to its marketing characteristics.

where Gtech represents the group index for group of technical parameters; and Gmark the group index for group of marketing parameters.
Then, the conclusion is made: if NPH < 1, then the studied new product is inferior to the reference sample, and in case of NPH > 1, the reference sample has higher competitiveness. A significant drawback of such approach consists in the fact that only those new product parameters can be used for comparison which have a numerical value, i.e. only the physical parameters of a new product can be considered in the calculation.

The next stage is obtaining qualitative assessments of these parameters based on surveys of experts or customers. The assessment is given both to the researched new product and to that offered by the closest competitor. Based on the qualitative assessment given in the form ‘very good’, ‘good’, ‘satisfactory’, ‘bad’ and ‘very bad’ to each of the parameters, coded scales by the number of parameters are built (customer or expert surveys). After transforming single responses into particular desirability functions, the new product competitiveness index NPGI will be obtained, as indicated in Formula (4):

where INDn represents individual needs/desirabilities.

Coded scales according to Harrington desirability function (Harrington, 1965) are as under: very good, 1.00–0.80; good, 0.80–0.63; satisfactory, 0.63–0.37; bad, 0.37–0.20; and very bad, 0.20–0.00.

The overall desirability function NPKI is defined as the geometric average of the individual desirability functions of each response INDn, where n is the number of responses. The optimal solutions are determined by maximising NPKI. This index enables the obtaining of a unified quantitative evaluation of new product competitiveness based on qualitative assessments of certain parameters. Considering that competitiveness is a multicomponent index influenced by marketing activities and other activities of companies, and new competitive advantages that appear as other groups of parameters can be used for new product competitiveness evaluation, these can then be introduced for calculating an optimised new product competitiveness index.

Coded scales according to Harrington desirability function (Harrington, 1965) are as under: very good, 1.00–0.80; good, 0.80–0.63; satisfactory, 0.63–0.37; bad, 0.37–0.20; and very bad, 0.20–0.00. The overall desirability function NPKI is defined as the geometric average of the individual desirability functions of each response INDn, where n is the number of responses. The optimal solutions are determined by maximising NPKI. This index enables the obtaining of a unified quantitative evaluation of new product competitiveness based on qualitative assessments of certain parameters. Considering that competitiveness is a multicomponent index influenced by marketing activities and other activities of companies, and new competitive advantages that appear as other groups of parameters can be used for new product competitiveness evaluation, these can then be introduced for calculating an optimised new product competitiveness index.

Conclusions

The paper presents the real market effects of new products, and their success and failure rates, from the point of view of companies representing various industries. The success or failure indicators, parameters and formal evaluation methods presented here are not expected to be exhaustive or to constitute an immediate and effective recipe for the competitiveness and success of a new product in the marketplace. The benefits of adoption of any type of measure presented in this paper depend on who is using the presented measurement methods. Nevertheless, the study does discuss immediate and pertinent issues by using established metrics for new product strategy effects’ assessment. The study provides useful metrics and methods of new product competitiveness evaluation that can be part of a more holistic and effective assessment of innovation projects. The statements made in the paper are based on examples of bibliographic sources and published empirical research on competitiveness and success or failure rates of a new product on the market. Useful research measures in the field of marketing and sales effects of new products are proposed. Simultaneously, the paper discusses direct and significant problems related to the use of established measures of new product success factors and product competitiveness. And at this point, it can be assumed that the present study’s indicators of the new product success on markets are better than those presented in the sources referenced in the paper. The research contained in the article provides indicators that can be part of a holistic and effective evaluation of new products on the competitive market.

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