Decision makers within SMEs face many competitive threats but also have a range of development opportunities available to them to advance the competitive position of their firm. These opportunities typically include development of new products and/or the improvement of their process performance. However it is very difficult to decide, ex-ante i.e. before-the-event, to which combination of new product development and/or improvement opportunities the SME should devote resources for the firm to

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... imise its economic performance. This is of strategic importance, given the limited resources available to SMEs. The ValuePOLE project addresses this challenge. ValuePOLE, a collaborative research project between academics and SME practitioners, is funded under the EU's Seventh Framework Programme, Research for the Benefit of SMEs. Its objective is to deliver a Model, an ICT Tool and a Methodology to answer this challenge for the SME decision maker so that they can maximise their competitive position with the minimum investment of resources. This paper describes the project as well as the results to date at the four SME case study firms.