Introduction

Abstract

Hardly a marketing or management textbook exists which does not hint at the tremendous change in present market fields — with the general saturation of the markets and the increase in global competition (cf. Urban & Hauser 1993, Kotier 1997, Keller 1998). In many industries, more and more new — often only incrementally modified — products are introduced within shorter time intervals provoking an ongoing reduction of product life cycles (Trinkfass 1997). In this world of time-based competition, companies more often see themselves confronted with difficulties in differentiating their supply by means of primarily technical-functional benefits.