International Journal of Advanced Engineering, Management and Science (IJAEMS) Peer-Reviewed Journal ISSN: 2454-1311 | Vol-11, Issue-3; May-Jun, 2025 Journal Home Page: https://ijaems.com/ DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.22161/ijaems.113.10 This article can be downloaded from here: www.ijaems.com 61 ©2025 The Author(s). Published by Infogain Publication, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ To what extent are SME decision-makers familiar with the most common strategy methods? Results of a survey among presidents, owners, CEOs and managing directors of industrial SMEs Jürgen Klausmann 1, * and Monika Zatrochova 2 1 Faculty of Management, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia 2 Prof. Ing. Monika Zatrochova, Ph.D., Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology, Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava, Slovakia *Corresponding author Received: 15 May 2025; Received in revised form: 11 Jun 2025; Accepted: 15 Jun 2025; Available online: 20 Jun 2025 Abstract— The objective of this article is to examine whether decision makers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are familiar with the most common strategy methods. To this end, a survey was conducted among decision-makers (presidents, owners, managing directors & CEOs) of SMEs to determine their knowledge of standard strategy methods which were identified for this investigation as SWOT-Match, Competitive Profile Matrix (CPM), Strategic Position & Action Evolution Matrix (SPACE-Matrix), Boston Consulting Group Matrix (BCG-Matrix), Internal & External Matrix (IE-Matrix), and the Grand Strategy Matrix (GSM). The results showed that approx. 50% do not know any strategy method at all and approx. 60% have never used strategy methods in their professional life. This confirms the assumption that SME decision-makers have limited knowledge of strategy methods, strategy development and planning. In addition, the standard methods were evaluated by 2 participants for their suitability, and they gave an assessment of whether formalized strategic planning is helpful for the long-term success of SMEs. Keywords— Strategy methods, SWOT-Match, Competitive Profile Matrix, Strategic Position & Action Evolution Matrix, Boston Consulting Group Matrix, Internal & External Matrix, Grand Strategy Matrix, Small and Medium Enterprises, SMEs. I. INTRODUCTION In short, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are described as independently operating companies with less than 250 employees and less than 50 Mio € revenues or a balance sum below 43 Mio € (European Commission 2017). Although SMEs play such a significant role in the world-wide economy, they are rarely focus of investigation and theory building, especially in the field of strategic management, strategic positioning, and resilience (Belas et al. 2022, Dimson et al. 2020, Klausmann et al. 2020). SMEs are generally less resilient than large and public companies, which usually have more resources and reserves and have implemented an established strategic development process (Eggers, F. 2020, Gunasekaran et al. 2011, Herbane 2012, Hong et al. 2012, Kraus et al. 2013, Ozgulbas et al. 2012). It is generally recognized that industrial SMEs have fewer resources than larger or public companies (Conz et al. 2015, Juergensen et al. 2020). This applies in particular to financial resources, but also to management capacities and management