The challenge of developing and launching products quickly, on a global basis, while staying ahead of the competition and achieving rapid market penetration has marketing managers searching for new ways of addressing these issues. For example, businesses not only need to harness new technologies, but develop both cross-market and cross- industry alliances to support global product development and launch. Issues of sequencing roll-outs across the firms diverse units has become increasingly important. Further, innovative organizational forms, such as born globals, has challenged, to some degree, the central tenets, of our understanding of product launch issues.

Although a great deal of research has been conducted related to product innovation and management, and the management of the launch of new products, only limited attention has been paid to the issue of global product launch. As such, a wealth of areas remain unexplored and ripe for theoretical development and empirical testing. For example, areas in need of investigation include: 

- Process innovations pertaining to global product development and/or launch
- New methodologies for understanding global product development and/or launch
- World product mandates and design/development constraints
-Antecedents and consequences of sequential versus simultaneous global launch
- Environmental (internal and external) influences on global product innovation and/or launch
- Round-the-world, round-the-clock design and development of world ready products
- Cross-market/cross-industry alliance issues influencing effective global product innovation and/or launch
-Consumer responsiveness to world ready products
- Comparative market studies of global product innovation and launch

In summary, global product innovation management and launch presents numerous opportunities for global marketing researchers to contribute to the marketing literature while simultaneously improving practice.