Strategic Marketing by Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs)

Abstract

Although there are many stages involved within the strategic planning process which makes the process somewhat daunting and difficult to follow to the letter for SMEs, research suggests that strategic marketing plays an important role for the success of many businesses. The literature review conducted for this research suggests that many authors writing in the subject domain focus on such activities in large organisations when providing details on how to adapt the strategic marketing approach, and they tend to ignore these issues in relation to small and medium size organisations. To identify the importance of the strategic marketing approach for such organisations, research was conducted within a SME in order to find out the importance of strategic marketing for this business. The main focus in this Case Study approach was to identify if the organisation could adapt the strategic marketing approach within its unique environment in order to increase its sales and revenue figures. The findings suggested that the organisation’s financial resources were the main issue impacting on strategic marketing planning; it is suggested that SMEs, due to lack of resources, might not follow the recommended approach to planning and may avoid some stages in the process in order to save money. The research indicates that there is a dearth of literature available for SMEs in this important subject domain as many books and authors tend only to focus on the process linked to large organisations.