Market forecasting for high-tech vs. Low-tech industrial products

Accurate market forecasting can be invaluable to marketing professionals trying to commercialize a new product or service. But what forecasting techniques are associated with successful innovation? Do market forecasting techniques differ for high-tech vs. low-tech products? This research investigates these questions by studying 75 new product projects: 39 successes and 36 failures from 35 high-technology companies and 40 low-technology companies. What we found was that some marketing techniques are better suited to high-tech products than low-tech and vice versa. In particular, successful high-tech industrial projects tended to rely more on internal forecasting techniques whereas low-tech industrial projects tended to rely more on traditional external market-based techniques.