Cree, Inc.: Lighting the Way

In 2013, Gary Trott faced some formidable tradeoffs regarding how and when to go to market with a new product. As vice president of product management at Cree, Inc., a $1 billion manufacturer of light-emitting diode (LED) technology, Trott had given his R&D team an aggressive set of requirements for a new LED lighting product for the commercial market. Trott now had to make a decision whether to relax the technical requirements but provide customers with fewer benefits, or to meet all the requirements but at a higher final cost. He knew that no solution would be perfect, but with the clock ticking, he had to make a decision on how to bring the product to market.