Business strategies in SMES in northern states of Malaysia

• Main Authors: Cheng, Wei Hin, Abdul Kadir, Kadzrina, Bohari, Abdul Manaf
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: HD28 Management. Industrial Management
• Online Access: http://repo.uum.edu.my/22441/1/ICBM%20%202014%20204%20210.pdf; http://repo.uum.edu.my/22441/
• Institution: Universiti Utara Malaysia

The business world today is getting more competitive and many companies are looking for ways to survive in the market competition especially Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs).This research was aimed at investigating how SMEs remain competitive in the Malaysian context.The main focus was to determine what type of business strategies were important to SMEs in the Northern states of Malaysia.The sample of the research comprised of SMEs in the Northern states of Malaysia which covered Perlis, Kedah and Penang.The population of the samples was derived from the directory of SMEs from the website.A purposive sampling was used and a cross sectional study was conducted where data was collected over a period of weeks through mail questionnaire and individual administrated questionnaires.The result of the research suggested that most business strategies were important to SMEs.Further to this, it also indicated that most SMEs used a hybrid or combination of Porter’s generic strategies with less than half concentrating only on one type of the strategy (focus, differentiation and cost leadership).The findings suggested that to remain competitive in business, SMEs will use a combination of business strategies.Hence there is a strong indication that Porter Generic Strategies are still applicable to the practice of SMEs in the Northern region of Malaysia