Abstract
Small and micro-enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the economy in terms of creating employment, innovation and economic growth. However, the success rate of SMEs is low and statistics show up to 70% of these enterprises fail within five years of being established. The low success rate is particularly true for clothing SMEs as they have to operate in a depleting industry. Research suggests that some of the reasons for failure might be that many new entrepreneurs lack information on target market needs and are therefore unable to develop implementable business strategies that enable growth or even survival. It is therefore critical for SMEs to identify and pursue target market needs that enable the business to develop products that have customer input from the start and in such a way, aim to lower the risk of failing. A business strategy that enables such thinking is the Customer Development Strategy (CDS)...
M.A. (Fashion Design)