(Economist Intelligence Unit: London) -- Due to a limited understanding of the customer, one-half of consumer products, financial services, and manufacturing companies say that they find it difficult to decide which products to phase out and which to retain, and only one-third of these companies are creating new products based upon customer needs, according to a new survey from the Economist Intelligence Unit sponsored by the George Group, part of Accenture. “Managing the Challenge of Product Proliferation,” a survey of 186 senior executives, examines how companies in those three industries make decisions on how to manage their product portfolios.

“We found that companies often launch and retire products and services on a piecemeal basis, without much thought to the overall product portfolio,” says Dan Armstrong, senior editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit. “They also tend to introduce new products and services faster than they get rid of old ones, expanding the product and service portfolio to an unsustainable size.”

The research is based on an online survey of 186 senior executives working at consumer goods, manufacturing, and financial services firms. Twenty-one percent of the respondents were CEOs or board members, and 36 percent belonged to the C-suite.

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