Malihe Shahidan - Sheffield Hallam University , UK.
Mehrzad Netadj - Collrge of Human Sciences Mississippi State University , MS USA

Large international corporations overtures into the Small and Medium Enterprise, (SMES) market have alarmed SMEs for they do not have the infrastructure and necessary resources to fight back. The lack of easy access to imperative information of business partners, the long process of communication with customers and the shortage of fundamental skills and focus on Total Quality Management procedures can make the SMEs susceptible in the market place. Despite of the wide availability of techniques , flexible manufacturing processes, automated warehousing and rapid logistics poor supply chain performance is still the norm. their main focus centers on management of dyadic of immediate suppliers and their relationships which are often based on win-lose circumstances. To gain a better understanding of SMEs approach and their existing status within the Esfahan region of Iran, both one-on-one surveys and mailed – in survey were conducted in the summer of 1999. Results indicate that these SMEs:1) consider their customers’ involvement negligible to their business success ; 2) utilize short-term multiple sourcing for their suppliers because of lack of government regulations and perceived economic instability; 3) have very little communication with their employees causing an almost a non-existent employees’ involvement in total quality process ; 4) have minimal adoption of any kind of Electronic Data interchange because of the lack of required skills for implementing and running it within the organization and the high costs involved; and 5) possess lower innovation, flexibility and inventiveness their businesses.

Supply Chain Management , Total Quality Management (TQM) , Small to Medium size Enterprises (SMEs) , Partnership , Cooperation