Does Early Purchasing Involvement lead to Early Supplier Involvement in New Product Development?

Greater competition in business is forcing companies to continually innovate and develop new products. To cope with this growing pressure on the firm’s already limited resources, companies are relying on suppliers more and more to undertake new product development on their behalf. Managing the increasing involvement of suppliers with internal clients has seen the purchasing department rise in prominence and significance, transforming it from a supporting transaction-executing function to a strategic source of competitive advantage. When involving other partners in the new product development process it has been theorised that the best practice it to include purchasers and suppliers ’earlier’ in the process than they would traditionally be used. The purpose of this case study is to confirm, or disprove, the benefits previously identified in related academic literature experienced by companies using early purchasing involvement (EPI) and early supplier involvement (ESI), and prove or dispel the barriers to EPI and ESI already discussed in the literature. In an attempt to fill a gap in the literature, we aim to discover the order of involvement of the two parties in new product development to answer the question ‘does early purchasing involvement lead to early supplier involvement in new product development?’. This was done through a survey and statistical analysis of the responses, and the implications are summarised with shortcomings acknowledged and areas for further research identified.