Receipt date: 04/02/2021 / Revision date: 05/24/2021 / Acceptance date: 05/07/2021

Introduction

SMEs in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and throughout the world are categorized as engines that energize the economy in every way, in turn, at least in Honduras. They have not been studied as it should be, although large companies at some point began as SMEs. They are not given relative importance they should have; the truth is that this sector of commercial and productive infrastructure, travel an arduous road with many difficulties to face every day.

Marketing is not indifferent to this commercial activity; however, due to the lack of resources, MSMEs operate in an artisanal or wild manner or in other words, without a professional or methodological sense, without the necessary studies and knowledge to be able to compete in a better way and therefore operate in the long term. The capital is the backbone of the country's submerged economies, which generates employment and cash flows, making Tegucigalpa increasingly attractive to investment. By identifying strategic marketing variables according to the different environments in Honduras, models will be provided to generate strategies to compete and thus help generate profitability.

The objective of the study was to develop an integrated model of strategic matrices for SMEs in the Central District, Honduras. The different marketing environments were taken as factors, as well as other models such as Porter's five forces, SWOT matrices, and micro and macro environment variables.

Background

According to the criteria of Barba and Martínez (2006), cited by Guevara, (2016) who point out that the birth of new companies can be grouped under perspectives attributed to the entrepreneur, based on the importance of generating diverse relationships to organize their businesses or companies.

According to González (2014), the genesis of MSMEs is considered to have arisen in two ways: The large company, one that has a stable structure and organization and the other that is of a family nature and seeks its permanence in the market.

Kerkhoff, (2012) in his study Competitiveness of MSMEs in Honduras explains that, despite the different initiatives to support micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises in Honduras, it is evident that these efforts are not clearly linked to a policy framework for the country's development in general, nor to the competitiveness of the business sector in particular.

According to Ochoa (2016) there are a total of 1,578 medium-sized enterprises in Honduras, covering the production of food, beverages and tobacco, textiles and clothing, wood and furniture, metalworking and chemicals, rubber and plastics. With respect to the collection of information, despite the fact that there is not enough baseline information, there is clarity in the definitions regarding MSMEs in Honduras, as evidenced by the organizations that have collected information on this topic over the years.

Specifically in studies carried out in Honduras, one on the competitiveness of the business sector, Cevallos (2008) quoted by Amaya (2015) indicates that SMEs have been increasingly the subject of numerous investigations and analyses, both in industrialized and developing countries. Their progressive importance in the economic growth process of countries is mainly due to the employment they generate in a context where two situations coexist.

According to Kerkhoff (2012), MSMEs play a fundamental role in the subsistence and development of the country. However, this situation has changed over the course of the last decades of the last century, as the sector went from representing a poverty survival mechanism to being a business segment that fights poverty. Kerkhoff (2012) states that in the seventies and eighties, not much importance was given to the formulation of the MSMEs' situation in Honduras.

For Amaya (2015), the Honduran small businessman continues to be the basis of the economy; more than 70% of the employment generated in the country is the product of micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises that already a total -only in the transformation area- of 170,000 organizations that contribute more than 30% of the country's GDP.

In a study published by Orueta (2016) according to the Law for the Promotion and Development of the Competitiveness of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises. Small enterprises are defined as those that have a better combination of productive factors and commercial positioning, which allow the business unit to accumulate certain surplus margins, have a more defined business organization than microenterprises, and greater formalization in their management and registration.

On the other hand, there are authors who have contributed to the growth of marketing theories in order to have a better understanding of the subject. In 1914, Professor Lewis Weld presented the research "Market Distribution" at the American Economic Association, a work that has been considered the first scientific research in marketing Bartels, (1988). In 1914, Butler defined marketing as a combination of factors, a work of coordination, planning, and administration of the complicated relationships that a distributor must consider before carrying out his campaign Bartels, (1988).

Alexander in his book Marketing (1940), quoted by Munuera Alemán (1992, p. 130), lists the following functions: Merchandising, Buying, Selling, Standardization, Risk, Concentration, Financing, Control, and Storage.

Porter (1991) cited by Estrada Sánchez and Vargas-Hernández (2015) mention that understanding the concept of competitiveness in its full dimension is important, given its value in explaining and addressing the problems posed by the creation of the factors required for development processes to be viable in underdeveloped economies, or at least for some sectors to grow.

Method

A quantitative research was conducted, which as evidenced by (Sampieri, 2014) "in quantitative studies data collection is used to test hypotheses, based on numerical measurement and statistical analysis, to establish patterns of behavior and test theories" a descriptive scope, with a non-experimental cross-sectional design, where the variables were ntegrated system of strategic matrices of the Marketing environment, as independent, Growth or business potency in SMEs as dependent. The sample was probabilistic, simple randomized, and according to the results of the sample size calculation, the instruments were applied to 155 SMEs in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

The instrument used was a structured questionnaire created by the author in order to supply variables to feed the different matrices, filled out by the owners, administrators, or managers of the companies, it consisted of several parts to be developed, the first focused on determining general descriptive aspects, such as seniority, gender, academic level, position of the interviewee, number of employees, and the category to which it belongs.

The second section of the instrument collected information on the dependent and independent variables, with emphasis on collecting the variables of the micro environment to determine the known weaknesses and strengths, as well as those of the macro environment to identify opportunities and threats of the competitive environment.

A pilot test was carried out to validate the instrument, which represented 15 companies representing 10% of the sample, with a statistical coefficient of 0.943 reliability as a result, which was considered correct, in order to continue with the study as a whole. For the analysis of the general information, frequency tables were used, using the SPSS program version 24.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis proposed for the research was: An integrated system of strategic matrices of the marketing environment helps decision making, and allows the organizational growth of SMEs.

Results

It was observed that of the total number of SMEs interviewed, 50.32% represented owners, 29.03% administrators and 20.65% managers, which gave a good indication of good criteria, since they are the ones who concretely manage the availability of company resources. All of them represent 38.06% with permanence from 1 to 3 years and 34.19% from 4 to 8 years and 27.74% 9 years or more. The average age with 42.58% is from 26 to 35 years, which is considered a young population, 18.06% the age is 18 to 25 years, and from 36 years and older is 39.35%, which represents an equitable distribution of the ages.

The educational level had interesting results, observing that 56.77% of the interviewees have undergraduate studies, which is considered very good given the skills needed to manage a business, 24.52% have high school, 16.77% have postgraduate studies, and only 1.94% have barely completed elementary school.

In the business gender, 60.65% are headed by men and 39.35% are headed by women.

On the other hand, 47.10% had 1 to 5 employees, 21.29% had 5 to 10 employees, 14.19% had 10 to 15 employees, and 17.42% had more than 15 employees. In terms of the sectors interviewed, the highest percentage was credited to the commercial sector with 41.29% and the service sector with 28.39%, followed by 19.35% of the food sector, but we tried to have a representative sample of all sectors, 51.61% are sole traders, 23.23% represent 23.23%, and 25.16% represent Limited Liability Companies, that is to say, the sample represents fully constituted SMEs.

The 32.90% of the sample said they did not know that whether their company or business was centralized or decentralized, 41.29% said it was centralized and 25.81% decentralized. It is observed that the model generates confidence in the people interviewed, as seen in previous analyses, the majority are the owners, and only a small number do not feel confidence in the model with 2.58%. It is observed that the managers of SMEs believe that the implementation of the strategic matrix model would improve their business, only a small 1.29% consider that it would not contribute anything to the management of their business, hence there is a good acceptance of the model.

In order to have a clearer picture of the data obtained, this section presents the crossing of variables of the main general data, with the main findings.

Results of environment analysis

Speaking of the macro-environment, political, and economic environment, according to the criteria of the different SME managers, there is a tendency to determine that in the Honduran context it is negative for the organizations, the cultural environment is more favorable in relation to the political and economic environments, and the technological environment is favorable to the political and economic environments.

In the Honduran context, the psychographic and environmental environment is more favorable in relation to the political and economic environments, according to SME managers.

In the micro environment, analyzing towards the internal part of the organizations, in the planning and administration variable, the managers consider that they have strengths in administrative management, which is considered positive; in the control variable, they do not have a tendency towards positive or negative, it can be said that they are equal in terms of their strengths and weaknesses; in the marketing variable, they have a negative tendency, which is considered weak in almost all the variables under study, especially in the research area.

In the Human Resources variable, they have a negative trend, which is considered weak in almost all the variables under study; in the Technical and Technological capabilities variable, they have a negative trend considered weak in almost all the variables under study.

Regarding the bargaining power of suppliers, they consider that there is a moderate risk that suppliers may affect them with different actions; regarding the bargaining power of buyers, whether for B2B or B2C channels, they consider that there is a low risk, since buyers do not have much decision-making power.

In the opinion of the managers, the power of substitute products is considered a high risk, which means that there is a risk that a customer will change their product for one similar to that of the competition. As for the entry of new competitors, they consider that there is a high risk, due to the great amount of competition in the capital’s competitive market.

Evaluating the strength of the SMEs' current competitors, according to their criteria, they consider that there is a high risk, due to the large amount of competition in the capital's competitive market.

In order to have a better criterion for this research work, proposals of strategic matrices were made for the SME, Innovación Creativa, a company dedicated to the elaboration of stamps and digital printing in Tegucigalpa, having the following results: Proposal of marketing strategy matrices for the Innovación Creativa company.

Table 1

Macro Environment Analysis. Opportunities identified for the Innovación Creativa company

Table 2

Opportunities identified for the Innovación Creativa company

Table 3

Threats identified for the Innovación Creativa company

Table 4

Threats identified for the Innovación Creativa company

Table 11
Creative Innovation Action Plan Model

Conclusions

SMEs have several arguments that affect them in the progress of their activities, in aspects related to marketing or administration of the same, despite being the subject of many studies within the socio-economic field. However, people who want to start a business look at SMEs as an element of entrepreneurship that will enable them to start their entrepreneurial path, through which their talent can be evidenced if their business becomes consolidated as a company that provides services and/or products for various types of customers.

It is feasible to note that this study, despite having a purely administrative marketing character, combines elements that can be used in the daily work of this type of companies, and performs an analysis from its origin, its advantages, disadvantages, evolution, administrative theories, etc., up to the production and proposal of an integrated model of strategic matrices.

On the other hand, according to the design of the objectives of the thesis, it is concluded that presenting as proposed an integrated matrix model is favorable for SMEs to be able to operate in a practical way in the competitive sector where they are, since it allows to know from the external and internal aspects and to be able to visualize tactical, operational, and strategic aspects in the future.

According to the perception of the SME owners or managers regarding the matrix system, they were open to test the model, taking into account that this process is costly to acquire, and they identified all those internal and external variables that may result as opportunities, threats, weaknesses, and strengths that SMEs may present in the general and specific environment.

The results of the study determined that the working hypothesis is approved because it is feasible to design an integrated system of strategic matrices, so the null hypothesis is rejected.

The research conducted by this doctoral work described very relevant aspects of SMEs in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, describing all those variables from administrative processes to operational processes, using and innovating matrices that will give much contribution to knowledge and concentrated value in competitive markets.

Among the major findings, it was discovered that companies face many threats at the political, economic, social, cultural, and psychographic levels, which were found in the instrument applied to 155 SMEs and had agreement with the model applied to the company under study. In turn, companies are committed to take advantage of many opportunities that the same macro environment can generate, using the tool called PESTEL can have a clearer picture in which environments should be taken care of and in which others can be taken advantage of.

The study of the specific or internal environment identified that on average SMEs have greater weaknesses in relation to their strengths due to the complexity of their operation, especially in obtaining working capital, technical knowledge, and all those variables such as suppliers, competitors, and customers. To complement the internal analysis, Porter's 5 forces tool was used to design a matrix to assess the established weaknesses and strengths.

Since most SMEs do not have innovation and development, they are pleased that these strategic matrices can significantly support them in improving their processes, especially in the marketing and administrative areas, which in the end leads to better income generation, hiring of more personnel, which combats unemployment and therefore contributes to improvements in society.

For these reasons, it was evident the satisfaction of the SME that provided their data at the time of running the respective simulations using the integrated model of strategic matrices. Thus, this company knows in advance its possible results, if they continue to be managed in the same way as they are currently and do not make any changes in their ways or techniques to manage and control their activities.

Taking into account the above, one of the alternatives for SMEs is to look for ways to increase their competitiveness and respond to the business environments that they face on a daily basis in relation to their competition, to the substitute products that are present, and in relation to the loss of customers. SMEs, according to the findings of this work, must make changes, which will help them to be competitive in each of the sectors where they develop their daily work and will be able to remain in time, despite external factors that are currently affecting them and internal factors that can take their toll if interesting control measures are not taken in the short, medium, and long term.

With the complete matrix model, which in total consists of 8 strategic, adapted, created, and innovated matrices, it is now possible to plan in the short, medium, and long term using a dynamic action plan, easy to assimilate and that can provide a critical overview of how to compete in all aspects. The action plan will help determine which strategies are the most appropriate depending on what is found in the different environments either internal or external.

Among the main limitations encountered during the study were the following:

• The lack of confidence that SMEs in Tegucigalpa have in providing data to generate information, both for the interviews and for filling out the instrument.
• Unfortunately, in the year 2020 the whole world was in pandemic, in the case of Honduras, it was in confinement since March, which made it difficult to access interviews and to request meetings to fill out the instrument, so we proceeded to conduct interviews by video call and the questionnaire virtually.

It should be noted that SMEs in Tegucigalpa are the main promoter of sources of employment, but unfortunately, they are little supported and stimulated by the government sector in order to generate more employment, tax payments, and healthy competition at a general level, especially in the tourism, services, and manufacturing sectors in general.

As for the recommendations, it is emphasized that SMEs in Tegucigalpa should put this integrated matrix model into practice, so that they can plan strategically, in an orderly, planned manner and above all with a vision of the aspects they want to improve on a daily basis, at all levels.

On the other hand, it is suggested to follow up on the results of this doctoral thesis in order to continue identifying variables from both the external and internal sectors, as well as possible improvements and innovations to the matrix system.

It is also suggested that more research be conducted on SMEs, not only in Tegucigalpa but also in Honduras, in order to strengthen this sector, which is so important not only for Honduras but for the world in general.

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