Critical Factors for Business Competitiveness in Malaysian Automotive Manufacturing SMEs

This paper is based on a survey conducted on top management of component suppliers to Malaysian automotive manufacturers. The survey was conducted to investigate the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) top managements’ perceptions on, first, critical competitive performance measures relative to their competitors and, second important goals that the drive SMEs to stay lean and competitive. This study aims at providing empirical evidence on the SMEs top managements’ perceptions of the above two major groups of competitive factors. Analysis of the survey results showed that the three most critical competitive performance measures relative to competitors are product quality, manufacturing cost and technological competitiveness. The surveys also found the three most important goals that help SMEs to stay lean and competitive are customer satisfaction, productivity improvement and operational performance. The paper culminates with a summary on the role of critical factors in improving and maintaining business performance.

کلیدواژه ها:

survey ، critical factors ، business ، performance ، competitive ، SMEs