Environmental scanning and SMEs strategies: a case study

Abstract

Dynamic competitive environment demands a constant adaptation. To prioritize strategic actions, companies must monitor key factors that affect their strategy. However, in SMEs (Small and Medium Enterprises) strategic planning and environment scanning tend to be informal and centralized on the owner. In this situation, these activities might be left aside or not produce information to support strategy formulation.Given the circumstances, it is important to understand the relationship between strategic decisions and scanning activities in SMEs. The relevance of this study lies on the fact that, in Brazil, over 90% of the companies are SMEs, therefore they represent a significant force to the economy. The objective of this research is to identify, from the characteristics of scanning process in SMEs, the relationship between competitive strategies and scanning activities.It was used a unique case study, establishing the proposition that the adoption of a strategy does not consider scanning activities. A framework was elaborated, based in the theory, and it was used as research instrument. The interviews were conducted with the board. The collected information were analyzed and confronted with the results found in theory. It was observed an informal and unstructured scanning, and a lack of reliability in the information gathered, what could limit the influence of scanning in strategy. Up to this moment, scanning activities did not influence the strategy in the studied company. This work helps to understand the relationship between scanning activities and strategy in SMEs. The framework developed can be used as reference to other studies. The limitations are the fact that the research only considers the company´s vision about its own environment and the owner’s opinion and the impossibility of results generalization. Future works can reproduce the research in similar companies, to confirm the obtained results