The purpose of this study is to understand the new product development process of Skullcandy. Study will take an in-depth how the Skullcandy product development process was constructed and how the team dynamics are aligned to achieve the company goals. Also the strategy of team compositions and size help to handle more than one project at any given time. Further, study will look in to the challenges faced by the company to retain employees and motivate them to do their best.

1. A detailed study to understand the new product development strategy of Skullcandy 1
A detailed study to understand the new product development strategy of Skullcandy
Charm Rammandala
California Intercontinental University

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Abstract
The purpose of this study is to understand the new product development process of Skullcandy.
Study will take an in-depth how the Skullcandy product development process was constructed
and how the team dynamics are aligned to achieve the company goals. Also the strategy of team
compositions and size help to handle more than one project at any given time. Further, study will
look in to the challenges faced by the company to retain employees and motivate them to do their
best.

3. A detailed study to understand the new product development strategy of Skullcandy 3
A detailed study to understand the new product development strategy of Skullcandy
Product development methodologies are rapidly evolving due to the competition becoming
more global. Customers are placing an increasing emphasis on quality and reliability, but at the
same time looking for good value. Speed to market is becoming a paradigm of world class
manufacturing. To respond to this increasingly dynamic and challenging environment,
manufacturers are implementing integrated product development concepts to reduce design cycle
time and improve product value (Crawford 2014).
Integrated product development is based on the integrated design of products and their
manufacturing and support processes. It is not a matter of assessing manufacturability, reliability,
and supportability of the product after it has been designed and making appropriate changes to
the design to enhance these competitive factors. This approach extends the design cycle time,
increases product development cost, and may not result in the most optimum way to produce the
product. Instead, these factors must be considered from the very start of product development
and designed into the product.
However, as organizations have grown in size and sophistication, personnel have become
geographically spread out and the organization has evolved into narrower functional
specializations to master the complexity of today's product development process. Product
development teams are a way to re-organize personnel involved in product development to
facilitate informal communication, sharing of requirements, constraints and ideas early in the
product development cycle. The result will be the parallel design of product and process and the
early consideration of the constraints and factors that impact the successful development of
competitive products (Cooper 2011)

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Some of the ways Skullcandy’s size and growth rate influence its development process
Skullcandy is a small in size yet and growing fast. With a staff of just 30 employees, it has
generated over US$85 million revenue within first 5 years of the operation. Due to the size of the
company, it relies heavily on collaboration with external parties for its development process. For
instance, they use industrial design firms to develop renderings of the products, and a Chinese
firms to create the stereolithographic prototypes, and manufacture the end products.
Skullcandy’s small size means that employees have to engage in multiple development
projects simultaneously. This helps teams to collaborate and understand how each individual’s
contribution & expertise help the overall goal, creating a closer relationship within the team.
Another notable advantage is due to the fairly small number of employees within the company,
organic flat management structure is in place. This helps employees to work with the
management as well as colleagues from other departments to work closely without having to go
through formal channels. This saves time and resources and helps to speed up the process.
Main characteristics of Skullcandy’s new product development team structure?
Early involvement and parallel design are key objectives of integrated product development.
The achievement of these objectives is dependent upon how people work together and organize
product and process development activities. As a result, organizational approaches are critical to
the success of integrated product development ( Crawford 2014)
As a company grows larger and products become more complex, hierarchical organizations
structures build to manage the increasingly large organization size, the technical complexity of
the product, and the specialization that evolves to master this complexity. Another factor that
occurs in organizational growth is the geographic dispersion of people and functional

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departments. These factors inhibit many of the informal relationships that previously provided
effective communication and coordination between functional disciplines. A hierarchical
organization structure with enterprise activities directed by functional managers becomes
incapable of coordinating the many steps to provide effective early involvement and parallel
design. Cross-functional product development teams, integrated product teams are a way to
breakdown this organizational complexity and put together the necessary skills and resources to
support more effective product and process development (Trott 2013)
Skullcandy’s organic flat structure and cross functional collaboration is a significant factor
in the new product development process. They are more like lightweight teams in that most team
members have a clear functional affiliation and work on few projects at any given time. Each
team has a senior manager as dedicated project manager. Company CEO also part of the process
and final approval comes from him. This helps teams and individuals to directly work with the
top management (Schilling 2010)
Advantages and disadvantages of employees engaging in more than one project
Companies are increasingly having to manage their cost of production due to the increased
competition. As a result of advances in technology as well as globalization, it has become easier
for some companies to come up with similar and improved products. Hence new product
development process has to accelerate. This will help to secure the market share and retain the
customers. However, it is not viable to increase the staff to handle each project. This will
increase the cost of production and ultimately result in losing the customer (Crawford 2014)
Most of the companies encourage and assign employees to work on several projects at any
given time. Some of the advantages includes, multi skilled & multi-talented employees can be

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generated by getting them to work on several projects. Also ideas could be exchanged across
projects complimenting each project. Also this allows employees to get a comprehensive
understanding on the company’s direction on product development.
Some of the disadvantages includes, employee could be too stretch within different projects,
resulting in delays in multiple projects. Also it could create a situation where employee not
taking any of the projects ownership seriously (Crawford 2014)
Employee appraisal and rewarding methods
It is important to recognize the contribution made by employees to the success of the
company. This will not help to encourage and retain the current employees but to attract the best
talent to the company. This ensures future staffing needs (Cooper 2011)
There are several employee appraisal methods and the most recent and most used in
corporate world is 360-degree appraisal method. Skullcandy also use similar method to evaluate
the employee performances and rewards. Scullcouncil is held once a month and during the
session, employees are given an opportunity to present their achievements. Quarterly review
determines the contribution of each employee and 75% of the annual bonus is based on the
individual performances and 25% on the company performances. This is a significant as
employees are encouraged to perform their best (Schilling 2010)
Summery
The speed of Innovation and company revenue generation are now closely interrelated. More
innovations help companies to stay ahead of the competition and retain the customers.
Skullcandy understand the significance of the product development process and its impact on the

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company bottom line. Organic flat structure with open door policy and 360-degree appraisal
method helps employees to be at their best.

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References
Cooper, R. (2011). Creating value through Innovation. New York, Pearson
Crawford, M (2014). New product management. New York, Pearson
Schilling, M (2010). Strategic management of technological innovation. Irwin, McGraw-Hill
Trott, P. (2013). New product development & Innovation management. San Francisco, Pearson