Identifying the product deletion decision-making process at a large multinational company

Abstract: Date: 2023-06-04 Title: Identifying the product deletion decision-making process at a large multinational company Level: Master thesis in Industrial Engineering and Management, Product and Process development - 30 ECTS Institution: School of Innovation Design and Engineering, Mälardalen University Authors: Alan Abdulrahman & Johan Glenne Tutor: Angelina Sundström Keywords: Product deletion process; Product deletion decision-making; Product portfolio management - product deletion Aim: The purpose of this study is to identify how a large multinational company is managing its product portfolios, specifically how they conduct product deletion, and examine to what extent those decisions are influenced by external actors Research question: How does a large multinational company manage its product deletion decision-making and what role do external actors’ influences play? Methodology: This study is qualitative and utilizes an abductive approach where a theoretical framework has been created based on gatherings from a literature study combined with the empirical results based on five semi-structured interviews conducted with both local and global product managers at a large multinational company. Conclusion: This study has successfully identified how a large multinational company works with product deletion decision-making. The conclusion of this study is that the studied company has no formal ways of working with product deletion and that there is currently no way of evaluating a product deletion decision. This study has also identified that the influence that external actors have varies greatly depending on the actor, and the precise amount of influence is impossible to measure.