The continuous development and market introduction of new products can be an important
determinant of sustained company performance. For approximately 30 years, conceptual and
empirical research has been undertaken to identify the critical success factors of new products.
This paper reviews the findings of empirical work into the success factors of new product
development (NPD). It is the prime objective of this work to summarize the most important
findings in a compact and structured way. In addition, shortcomings of previous empirical
work on NPD success factors will be discussed and suggestions for improvement in future
empirical NPD studies will be made.