ABSTRACT
The banking industry in Nigeria has become more competitive due to the reorganization of the banking service industry to make it more relevant for financing development projects. This has made the banks to invest more in information technology and introduced more products to ensure not only better returns but to enhance efficiency in service delivery. These explain why this study is designed to investigate the impact of new product development in enhancing sales growth, profitability and competitiveness in UBA as a case study of the firms in the banking sector.
To carry out the study, related literaturesand some empirical studies were reviewed. The three hypotheses formulated for the study include:New products development has not made any significant impact on sales growth in UBA Nigeria Plc., new products development has not made any significant impact on profitability of UBA Nigeria Plc and new product development has not made any significant impact on competitive effectiveness of UBA Nigeria Plc.All of these hypotheses were tested withparameters which were estimated applying ordinaryleast square (OLS) regression.
The data used in the analysis of data were derived from the financial statements of accounts of the UBA. The period of data used covered the period of 2001-2014. The results obtained using OLS were first subjected to second order tests or diagnostic tests to ensure that they were not spurious regression but realistic estimation of the true parameters of the regression parameters of the population of the study.The study establishes that new product development had not significantly affected the volume of sales of UBA during the period of the study.
The study also established that new product development has no substantial impact on the profit making of UBA during the period of this study. The thesis also demonstrated that new product development had not impacted significantly in improving the level of UBA competitiveness in the banking industry.On the basis of these findings the study recommends that since the current new product developed had no significant influence on sales growth probably due to the nature of product being introduced, the company has to introduce a new product that is unique and capable of improving its sales potentials.
Since the new product introduced could not improve theprofit making of thefirm during the period of review, it is important for the bank to introduce the product that is uniquein the banking sector that can enhance the bank's profit- making. The thesis also recommends that since the existing new product could not improve thecompetitive advantage being enjoyed by the firm due to its non-uniqueness in the banking industry, the bank need to come-up with a new product that is unique and capable to enhance the company competitive position.
