Assessment of market orientation in small and medium enterprises in Tanzania a: case of food and garment producing SMEs in Dar es Salaam

The study is concerned with the assessment of market orientation in small and medium enterprises in Tanzania: Food and garment producing SMEs in Dar es Salaam were selected as a case study. The objectives were to determine if garment and food industries take into consideration customers' needs and wants; to what extent inter-functional coordination is practiced; whether those enterprises practice competitor intelligence to inform their decisions; and to assess customer the level of customer satisfaction with product and services offered. The methodology used was a survey research strategy using Stratified and simple random sampling was used. A total of 60 respondents were included in the sample of whom 50 were customers and 10 were SME Managers. A fully structured questionnaire was used for the customer sample while depth interviews were conducted for SME Managers. Data analysis was done using SPSS and since the data was ordinal the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test statistic was used to compare observed and expected distributions. It was observed that SMEs Managers dot put much effort to study what their customers need and want on the products and services they deliver. Moreover it was revealed that SMEs Mangers do not focus on customer's complaints and in correcting mistakes for poor products. Furthermore, there was no inter-functional coordination within the firms since most of the SMEs managers play all departmental functions. Finally the study find out there was no competitor intelligence done by SMEs managers; no research was done by SMEs Managers to study their competitors' strengths and weaknesses. It is recommended that the SMEs Managers should take marketing orientation as an important element in the implementation of their activities. They should study the need and wants of their customers through conducting marketing research and continuously seek competitor intelligence.