Management of strategic change in businesses: An application in SMEs

Enterprises are extremely important in terms of national economies in the globalizing and privatizing world economic order. The main objective of the enterprises is to make a profit, but they also have missions and visions for improving the country's economy in terms of social and economic aspects. Businesses operating in today's highly competitive business environment face numerous threats and opportunities while trying to attain their purposes. This situation has necessitated the implementation of new management styles by businesses in order to achieve long-term viability.The majority of businesses in the world and in our country are SMEs. SMEs are the country's economic backbone. When evaluating the value of SMEs in terms of national economies, it is expected that these formations will continue their innovation activities, keep up with current situations, and constantly increase their quality and performance in order to be permanent in service and product production. As a result, SMEs should develop new strategies in order to achieve their defined goals quickly and effectively, as well as to maintain their existence in changing and increasing competitive environments. Many businesses have recognized the importance of strategic management and have started to integrate it in their own management. Strategic management is beneficial in making the lives of SMEs successful by eliminating unknown situations for the future and bringing competitive advantage.The purpose of this research is to include the strategic management model implementation process in SMEs by raising awareness about change management in businesses, to emphasize the importance of strategic management studies, to reveal how the strategic management process is formed, the effects of the strategic change process on business performance, and the extent to which strategic management tools, methods, and techniques are used. The personnel working in the SMEs selected as the sample group were used in the field research to uncover the point of strategic change and the results that emerged during the in-depth interview technique and interview form approach, both of which are among the qualitative research methods. The results of the descriptive analysis method exemplify that although SMEs are aware of change management, there are multiple implementation issues. As a result, company owners and relevant state institutions should mobilize more supportive resources in order to implement strategic change for managers and employees. It could be said that the results are consistent with the literature, and some of them will bring something new to it.