4.3.2 Knowledge of the environment

Knowledge of the social, cultural, physical, economic and political environ- ments is very important in product development, but is a massive task even in the largest companies who can have staff devoting their time to it. Fortunately many of the social and cultural changes are slow moving so there is time to predict where they are going. But of course political changes can be quite fast, especially where revolutions occur. Where does information come from - people, media, magazines, reports, journals and the Internet? How are we to convert it to useful knowledge in product development?

Information in many of these environmental changes does spread around the world quickly because of modern communication, but often it is in the 'communication bites' beloved of the media, which do not tell the whole story and in some cases distort the information. The large companies have staff placed in close proximity to parliaments and politicians so that they are not only actively looking for information but are indeed influencing the trends. But this is often a long way from the person managing product development on a daily basis, so one can find two opposing directions in the same company. For example, the product developer with close customer and retailer relationships in Europe may be designing natural, organic products, while the political lobbying staff may be trying to influence politicians to accept genetic engineering.

There are many economic reports and physical climatic reports around the world; it is not difficult to find information of possible increases in economic status of peoples, which will lead to a different food choice, and on effect of climate change on food choice - less hot soup and more ice cream. Economic change is now occurring in China and it is not difficult for the food companies to predict the food changes and the possible products that can be developed for this market. There are many predictions of climate changes, which may not be precisely reliable on timing, but still give the direction of change.

So how is this information on environmental changes developed into knowledge in product development? Many of the overall changes are incorporated in developing the business strategy, innovation strategy and therefore the product development strategy. So these overall changes are incorporated into the product development planning. But there are specific effects on the product development project and these must be carefully noted in planning the important decisions at each stage, so that the team can find the knowledge to meet these decisions. There need to be people in product development teams who are outward-looking and aware of what is happening in the environment and have the ability to bring this into the product development programme and projects.