Early in the development of a new product line, the critical resource is talent  New marketing ventures require a degree of managerial skill disproportionate to their short-term revenue prospects  Usually, however, talented managers are assigned only to established high-revenue product lines and, as a result, most new marketing ventures fail
Contrary to current practice, the best managers in a company should be assigned to development projects
The current revenue and profitability of an established product line can be maintained even if the company's best managers are assigned elsewhere.