Creating a new product development capability: The organisational enablers for moving up the value chain

The UK's innovative and productive performance remains a subject of considerable concern, not least because of its increasing productivity gap, but also because of concerns relating to manufacturing's reliance on gaining process efficiencies. Resolution of this position has been argued to involve a move up the value chain, through such means as New Product Development (NPD). Many examples of 'good' NPD practice exist within the literature. However, these examples and the associated determinants of NPD success principally focus on large organisations. In this paper, SMEs are argued as being different in their approach to developing new products, specifically focusing on their journey to create a NPD capability. This exploratory research incorporates two detailed case studies on UK based manufacturing SMEs in order to contribute to new knowledge and understanding, by identifying the key enablers to create a NPD capability.