Innovation, Operations to Promote Competitiveness in Manufacturing SMES.

• Author: Vazquez-Avila, Guillermo

INTRODUCTION

SMEs is a word that has recently become fashionable and has impacted society. Why it is important to study is because, in our country, the unemployment rate has increased during the last years. According to the OECD, for 2015 the unemployment rate stood at 5.2%. This has caused many heads of families to have no work or opportunity to get ahead and provide a better lifestyle for their families.

That is why it is important for SMEs to start growing, to be more competitive, innovative, creating new and standardized processes, creating technology, correctly developing their personnel, etc. Doing so will provoke financial development that will lead them to business success, in addition reducing costs that many other companies still have.

JUSTIFICATION

SMEs represent the economic soul of our country. They are companies that provide over 75% of all jobs, contribute to the national GDP and are the main engine of the Mexican economy. Most of these companies start only from an idea, a person with a desire to work, to undertake and to be their own employer, practically without any kind of human, financial, technological and material resources, where the main tool they have is innovation.

RESEARCH PROBLEM

Manufacturing SMEs are mostly informal companies that lack competitiveness. This deficiency can be related to several factors. However, the operations they perform can dictate a fundamental course that contributes to improving this competitiveness, an aspect that improves the percentage of participation of the companies. SMEs in the market, which can grow an SME, can become a large established company with low chance of becoming obsolete in its market. Jalisco is a state of entrepreneurial people. It ranks first in the country in its number of established SMEs, however, if these companies do not have automated systems, with adequate administrative control, with reliability in their processes and personnel development, they will be increasing the possibilities not only of not evolving and becoming a big company but stagnating and disappearing.

INVESTIGATION QUESTION

What is the correlation between the independent competitiveness variable and the dependent variable operation in manufacturing SMEs in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara (ZMJ)?

HYPOTHESIS

H1 Implementing automation increases the level of operations in SMEs.

H2 With adequate reliability, the level of operations in SMEs increases.

H3 With efficient personnel development, the level of operations in SMEs increases.

H4 With efficient personal development, the level of operations in SMEs increases.

THEORETICAL REVISION

SMEs in the World Context

Levy and Powell (2005) comment that most of the economies of the world move based on SMEs, since there are few countries where SMEs do not represent more than 90% of existing companies. According to the organization for cooperation and economic development (OECD), 95% of companies in the United Kingdom, the USA. Australia, Europe and Latin America are SMEs that employ between 60% and 70% of workers. These companies are innovative, because they are constantly looking for the development of new...