Product development and marketing are completely intertwined. If a product is not well-conceived, it will not complete well with competitive products, will not have strong appeal to customers, and will be harder to sell. This means that the sales-force will have to push harder to generate volume, will resist efforts to get them to spend time doing so (spending their time on easier sales), and will require more price cutting and/or “merchandising efforts” to move inventory. This results in lower profit margins, slower turnover (ROI impact), unproductive use of advertising funds (if any applied…not wise with a low-appeal product), and loss of business to competitors. The correlation is tight: a requirement for more marketing means lower profits and loss of market share. If Product Development doesn’t do its job effectively, Marketing will have little to work with. Profit during a product’s life cycle depends on some brilliance at the first stages of “concept development.” Lastly, how do you know when you’ve done a great job of product development? When you can’t keep up with “customer orders” (even with minimal marketing expenditures) your profit margins are high, and you are taking business away from competitors!