The dynamics of the market conditions globally have made not only large corporation take cautious steps in their growth trajectory but also has been instrumental in providing a platform for small and medium enterprises across sectors to integrate themselves as growth engines in the economies both developed and developing. What seemed to be a never ending growth story considering the sheer magnitude with which the small and medium enterprises increasingly started to capitalize on the opportunity provided due to consolidation among large corporate has been relatively been marred by the own issues and challenges that the SME face at their level. SME's initially considered as a replacement for larger enterprises and being promoted by governments of developed countries are increasingly losing out on the growth parameters as their focus has become sustainability and not growth. Especially in India where the SME growth story has been phenomenal the way the available opportunities had to be exploited has not happened and this can largely be attributed to the strategic vacuum especially in terms of how the SME's have been able to market their brands, products and services. With reduction in cost and increase in quality of goods and services delivered reaching a near standardization across sectors the only area where the SME's in India can develop a unique selling proposition to create a sustainable business model would largely depend on how they are able to market themselves beyond the traditional focus on cost, quality people etc. Marketing arena of today is the most dynamic with focus changing more towards below the line strategies than above the line strategies which still holds relevance in certain sectors and geographies. This study would be an effort to understand the strategic vacuum in Indian SME's with a marketing perspective as to where the companies are lacking and what are they doing in comparison with the global SME counterparts and also to analyze certain successful SME strategies adopted by successful SME's and provide a series of "NBA"'s-Next Best Actions to Indian SME's on how to exploit the marketing opportunities with the use of multiple ammunitions which are available to them. This would require a comparison from 5 different sectors including automobiles, entertainment, hospitality, retail and financial service SME's globally on their successful marketing strategies and to establish a perspective to similar Indian SME's on how they can be customized to the domestic conditions. This research paper would be a step in identifying these strategies for SME business and on how they can develop a long term competitive advantage
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