Abstract:

The way the SMEs have been doing their business has some connections with the capacity to embrace marketing activities that have made some of them to become big companies. The importance of SMEs and their contributions to the national development cannot be ignored and these are in form of job creation, paying taxes and poverty reduction. SMEs enable an entrepreneurial culture to be cultivated in a society. The major problem that this study examined was the relationship between SMEs growth and marketing practices/activities of these SMEs in the furniture industry in Zambia.

SMEs have the advantage of being able to use unutilized resources by involving different groups of people such as youth and women and act as an engine to achieve the economic vision of Zambia of being a semi-industrial country by the year 2025.

The SMEs that are in the furniture industry are the manufacturers and traders of furniture products in Kabwe, Zambia. The general research problem that the research investigated was to find out the types of marketing activities/practices that the SMEs were using and their effect on the growth of their enterprises.

The methodologies applied in this research include a combination of descriptive study (cross-sectional survey) and explanatory embedded literature search and case study. The research findings serve as tools to take actions to stimulate marketing practices of SMEs in Zambia.

Some recommendations about the contributions and importance of marketing activities/practices to the SMEs have been made to various sectors of the economy that have some significance influence on the growth of SMEs in Zambia.

Keywords: Small and Medium Enterprise, Marketing Activities, Growth, Entrepreneurship, Performance.

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