Future-robust evolution of product portfolios: Need for action from theory and practice

The evolution of products is driven by changes in the economic and technical environments through cycles of varying speed. But companies must not consider each product in isolation, but as a part of their product portfolio to reflect cross-product dependencies and interactions, as they are highly interconnected. As a result of these changes, companies face manifold challenges in the future-robust evolution of their product portfolios in a disruptive environment. A volatile environment requires the overarching and resilient design of products and related production systems. This article addresses the research question: What are the theoretical challenges and need for action in the evolution of product portfolios? How do they compare to the articulated challenges and need for action from practice? We conduct a systematic literature review to identify the challenges from a theoretical perspective and compare the results with the insights of an interview study. Overall, a need of action for the development of methods, processes and models to support the evolution of resilient product portfolios emerges. Based on the identified research gaps and the concrete challenge fields, a systematic for future-robust product portfolio development will be developed in the following work.