Barriers to business growth in pharmaceutical SMEs - a sustainable perspective

The purpose of this paper is to study the barriers to sustainable business growth in SMEs with special emphasis on Indian pharmaceutical SMEs. Selected barriers are analysed to determine their relationships and relevance. Literature review was conducted to select barriers and identify research gap. Decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) approach was the primary analysis approach and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was adopted to calculate consistency of the results. Interrelationship between the selected barriers was established and the key barriers that need to be focused on were determined, namely, the high cost of implementing sustainable alternatives, lack of government support, logistics and lack of access to finances. The causal diagram showing the interrelationship and grouping of the selected barriers will be useful in creating business strategies and evaluation models, particularly in the pharmaceutical sector of SMEs. This paper highlights the research gap in the sustainable studies focusing on Indian SMEs in the pharmaceutical sector. DEMATEL approach to conduct barrier analysis has not been done previously in this scenario.