COST MANAGEMENT IN NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: INSIGHTS FOR ITS CONCEPTUALIZATION AND APPLICATION

Most of the costs of a product are defined in the development stage where the main decisions about the features and characteristics of the product are taken. Therefore, this phase of the product life-cycle is so important for product's costs. This paper seeks to clarify the role of Cost Management in the New Product Development (NPD) process. In this research, some of it's issues (i.e. scope, fundamentals, main assumptions, resources used and applications) have been explored and tested. An exploratory Delphi study comprising two rounds was conducted among 37 experts (company collaborators, academics and consultants). The results obtained emphasized that product design, engineering and technology are deeply interconnected with cost management in NPD, the accounting and finance are the functions most involved in these activities and the interorganizational cost management practices can be more important than the internal activities.