MAS Innovation Newsletter July | Page 19

PAGE 19 Studies have shown that depending on one customer may have several negative effects on a firm, • Isolate a firm and stops its reputation spreading over a particular industry. • Lose the firm’s autonomy. - For NPD / Innovation process, key customer has to be prioritized in taking major decisions. • Key customer will dominate the NPD / Innovation efforts – no diversification of products, may be small incremental additions to the existing products of the key customer. Therefore, when the Key customer ties up a firm in a managerial and technical attention, the resources available for new product development projects gets limited, thus decreasing the productivity of the firm’s 9A