IMPORTANCE OF CLUSTERING STRATEGY FOR SME’S

Abstract

Clusters have emerged in various parts of the world throughout economic history because of closeness to natural resources, availability of suitable labor force in that region, the emergence of ideas of innovation in that region and needs for regional development. In time, while successful clusters showed improvement, failed cluster complete their lives and disappeared. Physical and temporal boundaries disappeared in the present day, clustering practices in Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) have been accelerated considerably in the world and in our country, especially in developed countries. SMEs which have a significant share of the economy in terms of employment and production in Turkey, have resorted to a variety of ways in order to ensure sustainability, increase competitiveness and enter global markets on the path to development of our country. However, in the extent of changing world conditions, various problems that SMEs have faced and experienced made it difficult for them to succeed on their own and have increased the importance of the clustering. Because SMEs in the cluster can have the opportunity to survive and find the opportunity to provide competitiveness based on innovation, trust, power and cooperation. For this purpose; primarily the concept of clustering was tried to be explained and then the advantages provided by the clusters to SMEs were examined in the study.