Product development process in Spanish SMEs: An empirical research

Rapid product development has been treated as a competitive strategy in a global market environment. It is essential to improve the product development process with the objective of reducing product development cycle time and hence to reach the market as quickly as possible. Large-scale companies have adopted new strategies and technologies to reduce the product development cycle time, taking into account various market and innovation barriers. However, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have not received adequate attention from researchers for their product development process. In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyze the critical success factors for the product development process with the help of an empirical research in SMEs. The research is based on a sample of 65 SMEs located in a medium developed region (Valencia) of Spain. The main objective of this research is to identify the major determinants that confront the product development. The cost of product development projects that discourages commitment to new product development and the uncertainty of the market acceptance were found to be the major factors. Contrary to what the theoretical studies recommend, the most frequent sequence for the process of development and promotion of new products is rather simple and short, with an average time for new product development of around 6 months, although largely depending on the sector. According to the study reported in this paper, the fulfilment of the key success factors as suggested by the literature is, in general, low.