Efforts to Increase Marketing Performance of Small and Medium Enterprises in Central Java, Indonesia

Abstract

Business competition in the current era of globalization requires companies to have a strategy to win the market. Management strategy has an important role in the survival of the company. The existence of such competition is also felt by small businesses such as Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The increasing number of SME units in Central Java was not followed by an increase in average sales of SMEs. This study aims to analyze the effect of the distribution channel, ERP implementation and entrepreneurial orientation on marketing performance with a competitive advantage as an intervening variable. The populations in this study were small and medium enterprises owners in Central Java. Six hypotheses were formulated for this study and 104 respondents were used to test those hypotheses. Structural Equation Model (SEM) was applied to this study using AMOS 24 as a tool. The result of this study shows that competitive advantage is the most variable in influencing the marketing performance, while this competitive advantage has an entrepreneurial orientation as the highest variable in influencing it. This study suggests that SMEs must increase its competitive advantage to increase their marketing performance. This competitive advantage can be built up by increasing the entrepreneurial orientation.