A systematic review of portfolio management

This systematic review was conducted to provide a broad assessment of the academic and practitioner literature relating to new product portfolio management. The aim is to identify the methods of new portfolio management used within global business to business (B2B) firms with a view to understanding the effectiveness and potential problems of portfolio management in practice. New product development portfolio management is the business process by which, typically, the senior management of a firm decide upon which new products to invest in to meet the firm's long, medium and short-term business objectives. Generally these would be those products which the senior management believe will most effectively utilise the firm's resources and thereby optimise the return on their investment. Within the limitations of this systematic review, a significant number of possible gaps in research are provisionally apparent. These notably include the absence of suitable research material studying possible differences in practice and emphasis of portfolio management in Japan and Asia compared with the United States and Western Europe. Whilst portfolio management is frequently portrayed as a rational, precise and logical process, evidence emerges from this review suggesting that human aspects, such as team motivation and personal ambition, may also arise which may inhibit the senior managers' effective portfolio decisions. This possibly raises questions as to whether, as a consequence of this phenomena, due consideration is therefore given to portfolio strategies which effectively re-use development efforts in other projects or take advantage of complementing a firm's product portfolio through alliances with other firms. In summary portfolio management would appear to be an area worthy of significant additional management research.