BUILDING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE THROUGH MARKETING, MANUFACTURING AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT STRATEGY: A CASE STUDY OF METAL PRODUCT SMEs IN TEGAL

Abstract

This research investigates how the marketing strategy, manufacturing strategy and environment management create SMEs competitive advantage that will improve SMEs business performance. It gives both theoretical and managerial implications about steps must be taken by SMEs to improve their business performance through the competitive advantage gained from the marketing strategy, manufacturing strategy, and the ability to manage the environment. This research includes a data set from 121 SMEs. Results show that the manufacturing and environment management strategy positively affects SMEs competitive advantage, and the competitive advantage also positively affects SMEs business performance. Marketing strategy implemented didn’t affect the competitive advantage. This research proved that for now, the competitive advantage of metal product SMEs in Tegal lay on their ability to create product in accordance with consumers want. Metal SMEs always maintain their flexibility and product quality with competitive prices. To gain the competitive advantage, SMEs must have the ability to adjust with political and economics transformation such as general election or city major and governor transformation. Because of its flexibility, metal SMEs in Tegal can easily adjust with the transformation of political and economical climate. The last thing that must be noted from this research is that metal SMEs in Tegal didn’t implement the marketing strategy well because of the job-order system. The competitive advantage will be more perfect if the company also have superb marketing strategy.