The effect of customer segmentation factors on export performance of SMEs

Export plays an essential role for boosting the economy of developing countries. On the other hand, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are important part of any economy. Therefore, it is important to determine the effects of various factors influencing on development of export activities. This paper presents an empirical investigation to study the effects of customer segmentation factors on the performance of export activities of SMEs in Iranian food industry. The study selects a sample of 227 people who were involved in development of SMEs in city of Tehran, Iran. The study designs a questionnaire in Likert scale consists of 34 questions, Cronbach alpha and KMO are equal to 0.809 and 0.764, respectively, which are well above the desirable levels. Using principal component analysis, the study has determined that different factors including competitive structure, organizational strategy, customer’s studies and organizational factors influencing the most on promoting export activities.