Management of new product development in small electronics firms

This paper reports on the findings of a study of the development of 63 new products in 36 electronics firms in Ireland. The firms range in size from fewer than ten to over 1,000 employees. They all operate in the electronics sector, developing and manufacturing a variety of products from completely integrated systems to discrete components. A series of questionnaires and interviews was used to collect historical life cycle data of new products. The results presented in this paper focus on the management of the product development process. The relationship between the development process and new product success or failure is examined. The differences between the management of product development in small and large firms are also explored. Small firms report a new product success rate comparable to that of larger firms, suggesting that the factors that are linked to the success of new products may be related to firm size.