Practical Benchmarking Implementation in Small and Medium Enterprises

This book is an attempt to propose, formulate and develop a suitable critical success factors (CSFs), framework and systematic guidelines for benchmarking implementation especially dedicated to the SMEs in the manufacturing sector. These CSFs, framework, and systematic guidelines are tailored to the needs; characteristics and resources constraints of SMEs, which is hopefully suitable, effective, and can help them in their effort to be more effective and competitive in the market place. The SMEs' overall perception of the nine CSFs and their practice were found to be significantly different because most of them placed high level of perception of importance on the CSFs,however in terms of practice it was still low. The proposed conceptual framework and CSFs were validated empirically by conducting case study at six SMEs involved in the manufacturing of automotive parts and components.