New Product Development - Gore-Tex Case Study

New Product Development

7/29/12

Gore-Tex Case Study

1. After the patent expired, the Gore-Tex brand created other products using the same technology. There was other companies that made generic versions of the breathable fabric on the market and the success of the product led to a rise in sales for the Gore-Tex related products.

2. Some of the wide range of products where the Gore-Tex fabric has been applied are shoes, coats, backpacks, and trousers. Today the organization divides its products into four main groupings: medical products; fabric products; electronic products; and industrial products.

3. Some of the dangers of being too heavily focused on technology is that technology is more expensive for the company and sometimes so much time is put into technology that is causes other areas of the innovation process that may not be as demanding to become neglected.

4. Cooperatives and share-ownership schemes limitations is that any decrease in performance and fall in value of the shares can cause enormous resentment within the firm as they see the value of their savings decrease and unlike publicly listed firms these shareholders cannot remove the managers.

5. The Gore strategy to achieving success in its markets is that they allow their employees to be openly involved and have the opportunity to invest within the company. The un-management strategy that the company uses has also allowed its employees to be creative and explore their entrepreneurship. This strategy is now being challenged because the company has many competitors that are varied and diverse and there is no company which competes with Gore in every product area