Moving towards a control technique to help small firms monitor and control key marketing parameters: a survival aid

This article considers that one way to help the small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) to survive is to offer it a robust but simple monitoring and control technique that would help it manage the business effectively and this, in turn, should help to increase its chances of survival. This technique should also be of interest to all people involved with monitoring or advising a large number of small enterprises or business units within a larger organization. For example, a bank manager or a small business consultant responsible for a portfolio of firms. The authors utilize process control techniques more often used in production and inventory control systems to demonstrate how one might monitor the marketing ``health'' of small firms