Guest editorial: MSME's resilience and performance: COVID-19 perspective

Citation

Kaliyan, M., Agarwal, V. and Anbanandam, R. (2023), "Guest editorial: MSME's resilience and performance: COVID-19 perspective", Benchmarking: An International Journal, Vol. 30 No. 6, pp. 1757-1764. https://doi.org/10.1108/BIJ-06-2023-784

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that many organisations were unaware of how vulnerable their businesses are to global disruptions (Singh et al., 2023). Without open communication channels and easy access to information across their global teams, their response to the disruption has been reactive and uncoordinated, creating several issues. The need for analysing the business practices using the available data and analysing the vulnerabilities for assessing the resilience of the organisations is the requirement of the current scenario (Kaviani et al., 2020) (see Table 1).

The COVID-19 pandemic has also resulted in supply chain disruptions globally due to the closing of plants, demand spikes, specifically in essential commodities and inventory disruptions. Micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), the socio-economic backbone of most countries (Jafari-Sadeghi et al., 2020), have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 has affected the MSMEs in three significant ways: directly changing production and demand, creating supply chain and market disruption, and its financial impact on firms and financial markets. Many MSMEs are closed or operating with a reduced workforce. The resumption of the MSMEs may require social and leadership support to develop post-COVID resilience in their business process (Khurana et al., 2021). The reinvigoration of business operations globally during and after the pandemic will require innovations, improvements and shared responsibility of all stakeholders to build more resilient supply chains with sustainability at their core. Organisations must identify and measure their performance metrics to achieve more efficient and agile processes by benchmarking and implementing the solutions that simplify and strengthen end-user communication and provide the information and insights needed for logistics teams to make intelligent decisions. In this context, there is an increasing need to re-analyse the business performance and make the businesses more resilient to future disruptions.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread and affect globally, policymakers and supply chain professionals have stepped up their efforts to redesign their networks. Employees of organisations are afraid, demotivated, and fearful of job cuts or reduced salaries. It is the need of the hour to deal with the above challenges concisely, maintain post-COVID-19 resilience, and develop adequate policies to handle such pandemics in the future. To ensure the sustainable operation of businesses across the globe, supply chain resilience is crucial in addressing the various challenges that arise in supply chain management and promoting efficient operations. Globally supply chain professionals are increasingly discussing the new coronavirus (COVID-19) situation with researchers, policymakers and stakeholders to find ways to lessen this short-term fallout.

The special issue

This special issue contains 18 articles that pertain to the MSME's resilience and performance from the perspective of COVID-19. These articles are grouped into three major sections: Strategies for resilience in MSMEs during COVID-19, critical success factors and barriers for resilience in MSMEs, and modeling of resilience and organisational performance.

Min (2022) conducted a study on the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chain operations and analysed how firms responded to the resulting crisis. The study also investigated whether the pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions disproportionately affected MSMEs. Analysing the data and testing the hypotheses showed that the COVID-19 crisis disproportionately impacted the labor productivity of the manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare sectors. The study also found that outsourcing and global sourcing practices did not necessarily make the supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19 worse. Moreover, MSMEs were adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic to a different degree than their large counterparts.

Using a machine learning approach, Bhanot et al. (2023) analysed the prevailing economic scenario. They suggested sustainable measures to recover the global economy, taking the Make in India (MII) initiative of developing the economy as a base for the study. The findings suggest that digital transformation will play a key role in concerned sectors to optimise the performance of manufacturing organisations. Additionally, the inter-relationship between key performance indicators for the economy's revival is crucial for effectively utilising foreign direct investment resources. Rao et al. (2023) developed a conceptual framework to help SMEs achieve viable business growth through improved sustainable performance. This research contributes to the SME literature by providing methodological, conceptual, and practical rigor. The framework proposed by the research covers all the relevant areas which can help prepare sustainable business trajectories for SMEs. It outlined the required directives for designing sustainable business practices for SMEs and included macro and micro determinants.

Qrunfleh et al. (2023) studied the themes and direction of supply chain mitigation and resilience research during the COVID-19 pandemic by conducting a systematic literature review (SLR) of supply chain mitigation literature since the pandemic. The researcher identified that most strategies in the existing literature focused on reactive approaches to supply chain disruption. Current mitigation literature has not evolved in parallel to the changing macro environment leaving a wide gap in considering vaccines as a supply chain mitigation strategy. Hence, this study identified the potential need to focus on building proactive supply chain mitigation strategies, preferably by studying the role of vaccines in mitigating supply chains. Kumar et al. (2023) identified how ICT appeared as an emergent business strategy and investigated the impact of ICT adoption factors on the perceived benefits of MSMEs. The findings indicated that ICT adoption during and following the COVID-19 pandemic is constant, like the enterprise. Moreover, the results suggest that different adoption of ICT factors influences on perceived benefits of organisational performance of Indian MSMEs that lent good support except for the regulatory framework.

The second section explains the critical success factors and barriers to achieving resilience for MSMSE organisations during COVID-19. Sindhwani et al. (2023) studied the MSME industry and pointed out the directly linked enablers to improve the sector's resiliency and sustainability. The result of m-TISM in the current research work revealed the essential commitment of a hierarchical design dealing with the MSME considering the viewpoint of future development. The well-planned traditional design of the MSME helps establish better government policies and programs and transport infrastructure. Varma and Dutta (2023) identified the critical aspects that start-ups must focus on to weather the COVID-19 pandemic storm. Research revealed that employees' and customers' safety, prudent cost management and online presence/doorstep services are essential for start-ups to succeed in today's changed business landscape due to COVID-19.

Baral et al. (2023) developed a model for MSMEs to cope with the current pandemic's operational and supply chain disruptions and similar circumstances. They have identified critical constructs as are-flexibility (FLE), collaboration (COL), risk management culture (RMC) and digitalisation (DIG). The statistical analysis indicated that the four latent variables, flexibility, digitalisation, risk management culture and collaboration, contribute significantly to the firm performance of MSMEs. Organisational resilience (ORS) mediates the effects of all four latent variables on MSMEs' firm performance (FP).

Banerjee et al. (2023) identified the barriers to building supply chain resilience and assessed their contextual relationship in the Indian MSME sector for the post-COVID-19 era. A total of 16 barriers to resilience, identified from the literature, were considered for analysis. The study's findings revealed that the lack of flexibility is the most critical causal barrier to building a resilient supply chain. Lack of planned resource management was also found to be a significant barrier. The study also identified the supply chain design, need for collaboration and technological capability as essential factors for the MSME sector to focus on. Jangre et al. (2023) identified and evaluated the factors influencing the business prospects of biomedical waste in developing economies. The research identified the key factors contributing to the successful implementation of business practices based on data obtained from BMW. The study explained their nature, significance and inter-relationship among them using BWM. The current study applied a distinctive modelling approach to examine the contextual relationship among the key factors and rank them as important. The study suggests that “Setup for collection and segregation is the best alternative for business from BMW produced”.

Fares et al. (2023) analysed the resilience of customer demand management post-coronavirus disease 2019, using fast fashion as an example and provided insights for potential applications to MSMEs. The results revealed that the highest priority enabler is maintaining customer loyalty. Other enablers are associated with e-commerce endorsement, a customer-focused assortment of items and flexible store operations. Kashyap and Shukla (2023) explored the critical barriers in the sustainable supply chains (SSCs) of the makhana industry in northern India. They sought to design a model for the researchers and the managers who want to work in this industry. The obtained results indicated that, in the SSC of makhana industry, the role of “Lack of adoption of organic agricultural management techniques”, “Lack of modern techniques”, “Multiple intermediaries”, “Weak socio-economic conditions” and “Lack of proper knowledge” is very significant. These barriers must be addressed first as they have the highest driving power, and these CBs drive other barriers directly.

Gupta and Kumar Singh (2023) identified the critical barriers to the recovery of MSMEs from the pandemic outbreak and recommended potential solutions for avoiding vulnerabilities. It can be observed that the organisational barriers are the most significant, followed by operational barriers and then technological barriers. Liquidity crunch and inadequate technical skills of employees are the most significant barriers to MSME's resilience during COVID-19, whereas fluctuation in input cost, unavailability of containers on time and decreased process efficiency are the least significant barriers to recovering MSMEs post-COVID-19.

The special issue's third section focuses on modelling resilience and organisational performance. Sreenivasan et al. (2023) identified, analysed and categorised the resilience factors for start-ups during the Covid-19 pandemic using total interpretive structural modelling (TISM). The study found ten resilience elements in total. The TISM digraph was constructed in the second step to show why one resilience component led to another. The MICMAC analysis divided these factors into four groups: autonomous, linkage, dependent and independent. These groups represented resilience variables based on their driving and dependent power, which assist executives and managers in proactively addressing them while using the TISM digraph as a guide. Sahoo and Thakur (2023) explored and prioritised the barriers hindering Supply Chain Finance application in Indian MSMEs. The study has revealed that poor cash flow management and working capital management disruption are the most prioritised barriers to SCF. The external factor of cultural challenges has been prioritised as the minimum-influence factor that has the least negative influence on the operations of SCF in MSMEs.

El Khoury et al. (2023) investigated the impact of green supply chain management (GSCM) practices on environmental performance in firms operating in the discretionary sector in the G20 countries. Results indicated that discretionary firms with internal solid GSCM practices combined with external environmental monitoring of suppliers are likely to outperform their peers in environmental issues, and both ISO 9000 and S&QM have moderating effects at some level of performance. Furthermore, environmental performance is positively correlated with accounting performance. This study contributed to the literature by addressing the impact of GSCM and the importance of reinforcing green and social regulations to protect the planet.

John (2023) explored the challenges faced by the MSMEs in the tourism industry in building capabilities toward being resilient in the wake of crises through a stakeholder perspective. The study identified that, in the long run, stakeholder barriers are the most significant in building capabilities toward being resilient in the wake of the crisis. However, for initial recovery, economic barriers need to be focused. Subsequently, organisational capabilities need to be developed through stakeholder support. Shweta et al. (2022) focused on mitigating risks in India's generic medicine supply chain (GMSC). Their recommendations can assist policymakers in developing appropriate plans and strategies to build resilience in the Jan Aushadhi Scheme (JAS) of MSMEs to improve their overall performance. The study's outcome revealed that transportation breakdown, loss of human resources and loss of suppliers are the potential risk-causing vulnerabilities that lead to vulnerabilities like shortages of medicines, loss of in-hand stock qualities and loss of sales/revenue. In addition, the analysis suggests that the sustainability of an organisation with maximum weightage is critical for building resilience in GMSC, followed by flexibility, agility and visibility.

Concluding remarks

This special issue is all about helping small businesses be more resilient and do better. There are articles about different ways to be resilient, things that can help or stop you from being resilient, and models to show how to be resilient and perform well. This special issue also talks about how small businesses can get even more resilient by having good plans and paying attention to critical success factors. It gives more details about these topics. This special issue explains that small businesses must be ready to deal with pandemics like the COVID-19 pandemic by strengthening their plans and changing them if required.

Table 1

Accepted manuscripts, sections and authors

Section	Title	Authors
Strategies for Resilience in MSMEs during COVID-19
1	Assessing the impact of a COVID-19 pandemic on supply chain transformation: an exploratory analysis	Min (2023)
2	A sustainable economic revival plan for post-COVID-19 using machine learning approach – a case study in developing economy context	Bhanot et al. (2023)
3	A conceptual framework for identifying sustainable business practices of small and medium enterprises	Rao et al. (2023)
4	Mitigation themes in supply chain research during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic literature review	Qrunfleh et al. (2023)
5	Adoption of ICTs as an emergent business strategy during and following COVID-19 crisis: evidence from Indian MSMEs	Kumar et al. (2023)
Critical success factors and Barriers to Resilience in MSMEs
6	Exploring “what,” “why” and “how” of resilience in MSME sector: a m-TISM approach	Sindhwani et al. (2023)
7	Restarting MSMEs and start-ups post-COVID-19: a grounded theory approach to identify success factors to tackle changed business landscape	Varma and Dutta (2023)
8	Analysis of factors impacting firm performance of MSMEs: lessons learnt from COVID-19	Baral et al. (2023)
9	Analysing organisational barriers towards building post pandemic supply chain resilience in Indian MSMEs: a grey-DEMATEL approach	Banerjee et al. (2023)
10	Prioritisation of factors and selection of best business practice from bio-medical waste generated using best–worst method	Jangre et al. (2023)
11	Enablers of post-COVID-19 customer demand resilience: evidence for fast-fashion MSMEs	Fares et al. (2023)
12	Analysis of critical barriers in the sustainable supply chain of MSMEs: a case of Makhana (Foxnut) industry	Kashyap and Shukla (2023)
13	Managing resilience of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) during COVID-19: analysis of barriers	Gupta and Kumar Singh (2023)
Modelling of Resilience and organisational performance
14	Modelling the Resilience of Start-ups during the COVID-19 Pandemic	Sreenivasan et al. (2023)
15	Enhancing the performance of Indian micro, small and medium enterprises by implementing supply chain finance: challenges emerging from COVID-19 pandemic	Sahoo and Thakur (2023)
16	The impact of green supply chain management practices on environmental performance during the COVID-19 period: the case of discretionary companies in the G-20 countries	El Khoury et al. (2023)
17	Can MSMEs in tourism survive the COVID-19 storm? A MSME view of their stakeholders	John (2023)
18	A hybrid framework to model resilience in the generic medicine supply chain of MSMEs	Shweta et al. (2022)