Abstract:
Research on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have led to interest in understanding brand distinctiveness, customers and competition among SMEs. This paper therefore examined the impact of brand orientation as a predictor of customer orientation, brand distinctiveness and competitor orientation. The study was quantitative in nature that 321 owners and managers of SMEs based in the Vaal Triangle region Gauteng, South Africa were surveyed. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling, conducted in SPSS 24 and AMOS 24 respectively. The main finding was that brand orientation had the strongest and most significant influence on an SME‘s brand distinctiveness thereby suggesting that managers of SMEs are encouraged to allocate more resources towards of strategic marketing in order to gain a competitive advantage in the market place. The implications for research call for more attention to be paid to brand distinctiveness as it was the most likely precursor of competitive advantage. The lack of test results could have limited the rigor of the research conceptually. The practical implications of the findings suggest that small and medium-sized enterprises should invest in more innovative employee training approaches to stand out from the cluster. Finally, the social implications also suggest that the success of small and medium-sized enterprises is immensely dependent on people's skills, thus again calling for improved training and enhanced teamwork.
