Q. Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren's degree of innnovation in product development
I have a assignment that needs to compare two brands. I chose Tommy and Ralph. How can I research for their product development and how can I know it's innovative?
You can look for this kind of information in several of the FIT Library databases (use your regular FIT user name and password to sign in to the services),
Some contain mostly articles--which can often get into great detail on your topic but may also be brief--and some are more longer-report oriented. Note that since both Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren are publicly held companies (that is, traded on the stock exchange) there's probably more information on those companies than on some others that are not public.
You 'll have to play around with a combination of words when you search any of the databases. Many read things very literally so that if you type in the word "innovation" it won't get you articles and reports that say "innovative" or "innovating". Try the name of each company with a variety of words to see what works best. Same with the phrase "product development"
In some databases like Mintel (which is composed of reports) you can just start with the name of the company/brand and see what shows up . For example, when I tried "Ralph Lauren" the first result I get is for a report called "Luxury Goods Retailing" and it points out a section "Who's Innovating" than mentioned Ralph Lauren.
Here's alist of databases that can get you started and a research guide that also mentions other online and in print sources of information.
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