Chandra, A: Marketing for Entrepreneurs and SMEs

SMEs have been known to the world since the 1940s. Entrepreneurship has been with the human kind since long but in the years following the technological revolution of the 20th century, the importance of both the Entrepreneurship and the SMEs has increased many folds in the minds of the researchers as well as the practitioners of marketing alike. The governments have not been far behind in realizing this growing importance and have jumped into the foray to help the SMEs and the Entrepreneurship to help achieve decent growth rates and make them sustainable through sustained innovation.Creativity has always been inherent in humans since long. While many people are, creative and generate remarkable ideas, only a few have the capacity to materialize these ideas into innovative products or services. Yet again only a fraction among these who innovate can present these innovations based on creative ideas to the market in such a way that they are accepted by the market and consumers are willing and able to pay for them. The marketability of the innovation is not possible without entrepreneurial skills which are essential to bring the innovation to the market by applying appropriate business processes of finance, marketing and promotion, etc.The SME phenomenon is based on entrepreneurship as well and the power to innovate is inherent to SMEs. Many governments have realized their importance and know fully well that they contribute immensely to national GDP growth, job creation and increase in exports and thus they have created support networks to ensure that SMEs are developed, nurtured and fostered in their countries. Regional and other organizations like the G20, OECD, and European Union, etc. have instituted programs and initiatives aimed at fostering their growth in their respective countries and territories. With the individual country, GDP, very much dependent on SME growth, these governments want to fully utilize the power of innovation among their citizens to stimulate national economic growth. In this drive to increase competitiveness, some nations are faring better than the others and the differences seems to be reflected in their innovative capabilities.The phenomenon of cluster SMEs is getting very popular as networked SMEs are better able to complement each other and take part in global projects with the same ease that is reflective of giant global corporations. The clusters can achieve better level of financing, marketing capabilities and superior project management as compared to the situation in which each individual SME would have tried to take on the project by itself. United the clusters stand and perform as lean and agile managerial systems to respond to global challenges like never.