A study on Malaysian food and beverage manufacturing SMEs practices of pre-development process

Product innovation is an important driver for organizations to improve their performance. Large-scale organizations have received full attention from many researchers with respect to efficient pre-development implementation and practices compared to small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Therefore, this study was performed with the main objective to identify SMEs practices in pre-development process. A survey questionnaire was developed and was sent to 687 Malaysian food and beverage manufacturing SMEs. Descriptive analysis was carried out to determine respondent profile and rank of eight critical success factors (CSFs) based on its contribution. Tests to investigate any differences between the level of importance and practice among SMEs were conducted using paired sample t-test. The results of the study indicated that Malaysian SMEs are aware of the importance of pre-development practices to improve organizational performance through the successful development of new products. However, several limitations (i.e. financial, work force, knowledge, experience, and technologies) had caused Malaysian SMEs unable to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in the pre-development implementation practice.