| Abstract: | Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) which had created Taiwan?s economical miracle continued to play an important role in the upcoming economic development of the country. They not only narrowed the gap between suburban and rural areas but also provided the necessary satellite industry structure to support large corporations. Due to Taiwan?s joining World Trade Organization (WTO), SMEs had to upgrade infrastructures, strengthened marketing channels, identified correct research and development directions, cultivated employees? talents, and adequately understood their situations and advantages to maintain their competitiveness to achieve continual growth. By conducting literature review and in-depth interviews of five enterprises located in Taichung Industrial Park that received National Award for SMEs, the authors identified the problems these companies faced and the strategies they applied to solve these problems. The environments SMEs faced could be categorized as external and internal ones and the problems they encountered and the strategies they applied were as follows:
1. External environment: External environment included both political economical and industry changes. The problems SMEs encountered were legislative restrictions, cost increases, recruiting difficulties, competition changes, and government and education ignorance of industry practices. The strategies SMEs applied included negotiation of trade tariff, offshore migration, and industry structure change and
improvement.
2. Internal environment: Internal environment included the growths of administrators, staffs, and enterprise owners of the enterprises. The problems SMEs encountered were the competence of administrative level, the shortage in R&D human resources,the lack of brands, and the dispersion of the market. The strategies they applied included segregation of duties, cultivation of excellent employees, strengthen of marketing, and exploitation of new customers.E |
