Critical success factors for selecting ideas in front-end of SME

Sammanfattning: Front-end activities prior to the product and process development have been pointed out by studies to be an essential part in development of new products and processes. Here selecting ideas is found to be route cause of success and failures of the new product and process development outcomes. The existing studies concentrate on larger companies, where tools and processes often are not fitting into the SME which have different needs and settings and lack attention regarding effective and sustainable processes in the front-end. This thesis addresses the need for a more detailed view of the most important factors that influence selecting innovative ideas in SME, with a purpose to address these factors and improve them in the front end process of these companies.  For this, by means of extensive literature study on SME, front-End and idea selection theories, a theoretical model for critical success factors for idea selection is developed, containing 21 factors. These factors are divided in main aspects of Shared vision, Innovation strategy, Leadership and management, Appropriate, structure and organization, Key individuals. Subsequently this model is tested in a case study of Bioteria Technologies AB in which the company’s idea selection process is analysed with the model.  The empirical analysis and discussions resulted in learning about the status of the company against the factors from which propositions follow.  The outcome of the study is a model that can be used for addressing what the challenges and opportunities are for the SME related to improving or adopting an idea selection phase.