Strategic Marketing Orientation and Firm Performance of Granite MSMEs: Evidence from the Industrial Cluster in Karimnagar District, India

Abstract

The Studies on strategic marketing orientation have focused more on consumer and service-oriented/service-intensive, technology-dominated industries to the detriment of traditional resource-based MSME clusters. More specifically, only a few empirical studies have reported how the marketing capability of an organisation provokes firm performance in industrial clusters with traditional manufacturing activities. Bridging this, the present paper explores the role of strategic marketing orientation on enterprise performance in Granite Micro Small and Medium (MSME) enterprises from the industrial cluster of Karimnagar District. Based on the Resource-Based View (RBV) and industrial marketing theory, this paper introduces marketing strategy as an intangible firm capability that amplifies competitive performance in resource-based manufacturing environments. A cross-sectional quantitative research design was used to collect primary data through a structured questionnaire distributed to the owners and managerial decision makers of 50 granite MSMEs. Product differentiation, price strategy, promotion strategy and distribution/ network strategies as four dimensions of marketing strategy were investigated in relation to firm performance. Data were detected through descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, Pearson correlation and multiple regression. The results indicate that product differentiation, pricing strategy and distribution/network strategy have a strong impact on company performance, whereas promotion strategy has an inferior effect. Pricing strategy was found to be the most significant predictor, emphasising the significance of market-driven pricing in very competitive cluster contexts. The regression analysis shows the explanatory power as moderate (R = 0.612), i.e., marketing strategy dimensions explain jointly 37.4% of variations in firm performance (R²=0.374). ‘Theoretically, this study contributes to the extension of the RBV by demonstrating a focus on physical resources is not sufficient to explain marketing MSME performance in a traditional manufacturing MSME cluster. In addition, on the empirical level, it extends industrial marketing and MSME literature by offering insights from an underserved sector. Managerially, the results imply that granite MSMEs need to focus on differentiation and network-oriented market development, and at the policy level, cluster-based branding as well as marketing capability enhancement may contribute to regional competitiveness.