PRIDE: where business and technology meet

PRIDE is a research group set up jointly between the Business School and the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Loughborough University, UK. The aim of this is not just to work on the interface between technology and business but to work on new product development together. The author describes how, like many other aspects in the interface between management and engineering, all the problems are known but answers are still struggled for. Within marketing there are concerns that the brands are in decline and so is the brand manager. That is not the real issue. The brand is changing and needs to be managed in a more integrated way, but there is no doubt that whatever happens, engineering will continue to make products while the customer increasingly buys brands