Bob Thomas is a Professor and former Senior Associate Dean at The McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. From 1987 to 1990 he served as the Associate Dean of Graduate Business Programs at Georgetown. In this capacity, he directed the Georgetown MBA program, and chaired the committees that led to the design of an innovative globalized general management curriculum and a restructuring of the graduate business admissions process.
Bob received his doctorate in Marketing from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation on organizational buying behavior won first place in the 1981 Academy of Marketing Science dissertation competition. In 1982 he joined the faculty at The McDonough School of Business, after a two year visiting position at Wharton. He has taught courses in New Product Development, Marketing Management, and Marketing Research and numerous executive education seminars and courses in the U.S. and several countries.
Bob has published over forty articles in the areas of new product development, organizational buying behavior, and forecasting. He recently recevied a grant from the Marketing Science Institute and APICS to study the impact of global logistics on new product design. His book, New Product Development: Managing and Forecasting for Strategic Success was a featured selection of the Fortune Book Club. His most recent book, New Product Success Stories: Lessons From Leading Innovators, has also been published on tape. He is on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Product Innovation Management, Advances in Business Marketing and Purchasing, and is an active member in several academic associations, including the American Marketing Association, The Institute of Management Sciences, and the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA). He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the PDMA. His research interests are in the area of new product development, market segmentation, and forecasting.
Bob has consulted with over fifty organizations in a wide variety of industries and cultures, including both consumer and industrial products and services. He has worked with large and small clients on short-term projects and long-term assignments. These assignments include strategic market planning, new product development, segmentation, forecasting, model building, and planning and executing numerous marketing research projects. In addition, he has provided written and oral testimony in an expert capacity before several regulatory groups, including the Federal Communications Commission, the United States Postal Rate Commission, and the International Trade Commission.
New Product Development: Managing and Forecasting for Strategic Success