Building The 7E7
Building the 7E7: NPD at Boeing Simon Knox, Gary Smith and Paul Baines
Introduction
The Head of Product Marketing at Boeing USA was sitting at his desk in the early part of 007 reviewing how life in the aviation industry had changed so dramatically after 9/11.Not only did this one terrorist act shake the very foundations of western society, it also threw the airline industry – both the airlines and the airline manufacturers– into a tail spin when their customers, businesses and individual fliers, took a long hard look at whether or not going on a flight was really necessary. Many passengers voted with their feet and cancelled their trips. Since then, a second shock hit the airline industry in the 2000s when oil prices doubled and environmental issues came to the fore, with air travel in the forefront of an increasingly vociferous public and political debate about environmental damage and sustainability.
Product Development at Boeing
A twenty year veteran of the industry, The Head of Product Marketing had never experienced such a rapid descent into the unknown in the aftermath of Twin Towers; the profit and margin declines in the industry were due to most commercial airlines cancelling or deferring orders, the massive down turn in people flying globally and, worst of all, the lack of confidence about the future across the aviation industry as a whole. In this respect, he knew that the Boeing culture and the ‘can do’ cross-functional teams across his company were very different to the competition. From the onset of the 2001 down turn, he sensed that there was a quiet confidence among Boeing’s senior management team. Earlier in 2001, the company had announced the launch of Boeing’s new, concept plane that could go 20% faster than any of its competitors and save up to 3 hours on an ultra-long-haul flight. At the time, it was greeted with very great interest and enthusiasm by all major customers
Introduction
The Head of Product Marketing at Boeing USA was sitting at his desk in the early part of 007 reviewing how life in the aviation industry had changed so dramatically after 9/11.Not only did this one terrorist act shake the very foundations of western society, it also threw the airline industry – both the airlines and the airline manufacturers– into a tail spin when their customers, businesses and individual fliers, took a long hard look at whether or not going on a flight was really necessary. Many passengers voted with their feet and cancelled their trips. Since then, a second shock hit the airline industry in the 2000s when oil prices doubled and environmental issues came to the fore, with air travel in the forefront of an increasingly vociferous public and political debate about environmental damage and sustainability.
Product Development at Boeing
A twenty year veteran of the industry, The Head of Product Marketing had never experienced such a rapid descent into the unknown in the aftermath of Twin Towers; the profit and margin declines in the industry were due to most commercial airlines cancelling or deferring orders, the massive down turn in people flying globally and, worst of all, the lack of confidence about the future across the aviation industry as a whole. In this respect, he knew that the Boeing culture and the ‘can do’ cross-functional teams across his company were very different to the competition. From the onset of the 2001 down turn, he sensed that there was a quiet confidence among Boeing’s senior management team. Earlier in 2001, the company had announced the launch of Boeing’s new, concept plane that could go 20% faster than any of its competitors and save up to 3 hours on an ultra-long-haul flight. At the time, it was greeted with very great interest and enthusiasm by all major customers