Given industry competitiveness, how do firms' new product development (NPD) process designs differ when responding to an innovation mandate? How do NPD design elements differ across firms when implementing NPD processes? These design elements are strategic business unit (SBU) senior management involvement, business case content, customer interactions, and cross‐functional integration. What are the consequences of different combinations of NPD process design elements for innovation productivity? We explore these questions via a collective case study of newly implemented NPD process designs at three different SBUs of a major US‐based international conglomerate, 1 year after receiving the mandate to grow through innovation. Our analysis suggests that industry competitiveness and firm characteristics influence the NPD process design as SBUs employ distinct combinations of NPD design elements. The differential emphasis on design elements leads to variation in process design and divergence in innovation productivity.