Tanzanian SMEs’ Perceptions towards Adoption of Supply Chain Management (SCM) Strategy

Abstract

Although a number of Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) in Tanzania economy is high, their share in national income is significantly low due to lack of efficiency. The choice to implement supply chain and supply chain management by SMEs will lower costs and increase efficiency, which will eventually help in lowering costs and increase gains to both SMEs and the country. In this research we have compared the differences in perceptions of small and medium-sized enterprises against large enterprises. The methodology, employed was cross-sectional survey of Tanzanian enterprises engaged in agricultural processing. The findings clearly show that SMEs give less attention to supply chain management strategies, also reluctant to employ transparent integrated system to link them with other actors in the chain. Absence of compatible organization structures in SMEs is seen as a major obstacle for complete implementation of integration strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of International Journal of Business & Management is the property of Canadian Center of Science & Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)