THE SIGNIFICANCE OF STRATEGIC MARKETING PRACTICES TO THE EFFECTIVE AND EFFICIENT PERFORMANCE

CHAPTER ONE

1.1      INTRODUCTION

Small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) is a burgeoning horizon in the local and global arena.  The dire need and understanding of its revolutionary effects on any economy is rife.  This have made it remain very prominent in the industrial growth of the sub-sector have been intensified.  This is evident in the various attempts to inspire developing countries to accentuate and actively participate in small and medium scale enterprises.

Nigeria is a country of more than 130 million people, with a lot of human and natural resources.  The volume of trade in the Nigeria economy is very substantial and enormous, more so, are the types of economic activities becoming specialized and advanced.  The global trade activities occasioned by Nigeria’s trade development focus mainly of Nigeria in the context of West Africa.  According to Olubajo (1985) about 70% of Cargo traffic to West Africa countries from the United Kingdom is for Nigeria.  This implies that without Nigeria as a major market, adversely affected.  Nigeria also exports such products like cocoa, palm kernel, rubber, coffee, and few industrial products. If SMEs are country would earn a substantial foreign exchange.  One of the concentrating her resources on SMEs is the expectation that such investment could help attain her import substitution, and export promotion drive objectives, invariably, creating a relieve on some of the problems of her balance of payments, the National income and Gross Domestic products (GDP), low per capita income, poor standard of living, social insecurity, inter alia.

Nigerian governments have over the yeas taken actions to help increase participation and productivity in small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs).  Some of these expedient actions include provision of subsidies in form of tax holidays and other support services, integrating the bankers’ committee to address the paucity of financial resources due to low domestic savings insufficient to match with the level of investment consistent with national economic growth targets, creating enabling environment, establishing industrial development Centres (IDC), like the National economic schemes and programmes import duty draw back, export credit guarantee scheme, export development and expansion fund, import duty draw back, export credit guarantee scheme, export development and expansion fund, structural adjustment programme, (SAP) with the expectation that new entrepreneurial spirits and initiatives would be ignited to make SMEs flourish.  No doubt, much emphasis was placed on SMEs to look inward, develop and increase their raw materials supply, and boosts output and export trade.  Today, history is being made towards the creation of tomorrow’s potential multinational corporations (Sanusi, 2003).  The steps taken by various governments were predicated on the recognition of the strategic importance of SMEs to the economy, their low survival capacity, ad the need to develop entrepreneurial abilities of Nigerians, despite these efforts by the government, the participation of Nigerians in, and the performance of SMEs have been abysmally low.  This malign situation, as argued by many theorists, is traceable to inefficient and ineffective management practices.

The main motivation for being in business is to achieve organizational goals.  A lot of company decisions affect the degree of achievement of organizational goals (Osuaguwu, 2002).  As regards SMEs, decisions on products/services, and marketing affect the profitability of any SME.  The development in SMEs has always been founded on the drive to achieve organizational goals efficiently.  All management practices should, therefore, be tailored towards the achievement of organizational goals.

Challenged by the overriding need to achieve organizational goals, SMEs can explore new avenues to achieve these organizational goals.  A variety of approaches can be used by are generally called strategic management.  According to Jain (1983) as cited by Osuagwu (2002), the thrust on strategic management has given rise to strategic marketing.

Marketing considerations together with those of other functional areas of business play an important role in structuring corporate objectives and strategies.  The corporate strategy of a firm represents the pattern of resource allocation in order to achieve the desired goals, and the level of interaction of an organization with its environment.  Corporate strategy is therefore the art and science of formulating, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions that enable an organization to achieve stated objective (Adeleke, Ogundele, Oyenuga, 2003).

Marketing, both as a discipline and a way of life, has a germane role lot play in the economy of a developing country like Nigeria.  Without effective marketing activities, there may be little progress in the national economy of Nigeria.  It may be justified to assert that it is through efficient and effective marketing practices that a developing country like Nigeria can participate efficiently and effectively in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).  With advancing technology and increasing productivity, coupled with an ever changing environment (with its attendant shocks and surprise), the future growth of an economy can be said to be a function of the effectiveness and efficiency of its marketing practices.

As a result of the recent economic reforms in the co

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