The Role of Serial Innovators for Time-to-Market in the AI Era

An important strategic goal through the process of product innovation is the timely market entry. The supports for time-to-market of a new product include efficiently organizing a cross-functional team, collaboratively intensifying the resource commitment, proactively shortening the designing and prototyping, timely securing the capacity for manufacturing, and synergistically coordinating the marketing programs. The role of serial innovators is often essential to accomplish these complex tasks of developing and launching a new product, especially in the case of radical innovation. The serial innovator’s capacity of bridging the gap between technology and market is based on their confidence of comprehending the competitive environment, discovering the technical solutions, confirming the customer acceptance, and estimating the market potential. This study explores the strategic implications of a case study on the new product success factors in relation to the role of serial innovators in today’s AI-based business environment. The lessons from sixty pioneering and following market-entry cases confirm such success-factors as: Technical or technological superiority, Competitive advantages associated with the market- entry time, Enhanced customer service, Appeal to the customers with additional value, Superior quality of the product offering, Expanding industry and market demand, Cost or pricing advantages, Intelligence advantages, Brand identity or customer loyalty, and Partnership or leadership advantages. Many of these success factors are closely related to the capacity of the serial innovators having expertise in both science and business.