Speaker(s): Karl Ulrich
(Wharton School)
Title:
Abstract
There is a widespread perception that product variety has increased in
recent decades. When viewed statically, the decision of how many variants of a
product to offer can be thought of as a trade-off between addressing
heterogeneous customer needs and the scale economies associated with fewer,
higher volume products. But how should we think about changes in the level of
product variety over the lifecycle of a product category? In this talk we
discuss theories from both the supply side and demand side that might explain
the dynamics of product variety. This work is preliminary, but we report on
initial empirical exploration of the level of product variety in several
technology-based categories over the period 1980-2000.
Joint work with Karthik Balasubramaniam and Taylor Randall.