The challenge of strategic planning in SMEs

The article proposed a documentary and exploratory investigation to characterize the results reported in the literature on the difficulties involved in developing strategic planning for SMEs. Articles containing the term "SME" in its title, in the Scopus database were collected. Accordingly a total of 130 publications that served for content analysis in accordance with the objectives of this contribution were obtained. The search was also made in Google Scholar regarding the terms "strategic planning and SMEs" it allowed collecting 14 references that were related to the purpose of this article. The results of the review in Scopus for the period 1998 to 2016 showed the increasing publication of scientific articles on the subject SMEs, most of the articles are concentrated either in Spanish, Columbian and Mexican journals and reported themes include those related to SME funding problems and the implementation of information and communications technology in various types of SMEs. From the remarks reported in the literature it was concluded that the fundamental factors that differentiate the strategic planning process in SMEs are: lack of formal procedures for strategic planning as prescribed by traditional schools, the specific way they operate SMEs based on decisions and specific projects, which are defining a long-term trajectory that combines stages of stability and change and quality of human resources available to SMEs that may be a divorce between training and labor market needs