The Development Factory

Gary Pisano argues that the development of distinctive and superior process technologies is a key source of competitive advantage. In a multi-year study of international pharmaceutical firms (with references to a variety of other industries), he challenges the widely held product/process life cycle view of competition, which suggests that industries tend to emphasize either product innovation or process innovation. He also offers a set of recommendations for the practices and approaches that can be used to unlock the potential of process development. In doing so, he provides a window into the more general phenomenon of how organizations create, select, and implement new capabilities.

Introduction - process development as a competitive weapon; framework for process development; the evolving nature of competition in pharmaceuticals; the strategic level of process development capabilities; the anatomy of process development; the determinants of performance-development lead time and cost; Quality in the development process- leveraging knowledge in chemical synthesis; learning across projects in biotechnology; the concepts in action - case studies; conclusion and implications - beyond pharmeceuticals.