Small Medium Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) are an integral part of any country’s economy, and their development contribute towards economic development, poverty eradication and readiness for the fourth industrial revolution. Product innovation has been identified as one avenue of creating added value to the products and services offered by SMMEs. Evidence from the literature shows that the ability of any SMME to successfully compete in the global market depends on how it innovates its products and services. However, this area is under-researched as none of the studies reviewed have actually attempted to explore the technological ecosystem of design and innovation in Botswana, except research in management issues. SMMEs elsewhere have proved to be the drivers of the economy and they generate employment for the skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers. This paper investigates the role played by product innovation within the manufacturing SMMEs sector in Botswana in order remain competitive in the global market. Lessons for Design and Technology will be drawn from such an endeavour. Design and Technology is supposed to be a subject which provides a foundation to learners to pursue careers in product and service innovation, and possibly assist SMMEs to innovate their products and services. The study adopted a mixed-methods approach to data collection through the use of a survey and observations on SMMEs product innovation practices as well as document analysis. Fifty manufacturing SMMEs were purposive sampled in the following sectors: metalwork, woodwork and leather industry. The sample size was selected using the RaoSoftware. Purposive sampling emphasises a criterion-based selection of information-rich cases from which a researcher can discover, understand, and gain more insight into issues crucial for the study. The data was analysed using SPSS 16.0 to perform univariate analysis to assess whether Botswana’s SMMEs do innovate their products. The results show that there is a lack of product innovation within the SMME sector. The study proposes the development of an innovation manual to address this deficiency.

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