Although, China’s luminaire industry reached a certain scale, most luminaire manufacturers are still SMEs. Under intense market competition, the industry is becoming increasingly polarized. For SMEs to succeed under immense pressure, manufacturers have to transit business models and raise product quality, production and profitability.

SME luminaire manufacturers development opportunities and challenges

The luminaire industry has entered a expeditious development phase, with SMEs and industry scale is quickly expanding. In more prosperous economies the industry is creating new job opportunities, while promoting innovation and stimulating new economic growth. SMEs are no doubt becoming increasingly important.

In general, China’s SME luminaire manufacturers tend to be fairly small, uncompetitive, and have manpower shortages. Opportunities and challenges, however, have always existed. Furthermore, the luminaire market has not entered maturation. Thus, SMEs still have very large room for development.

Economics of scale has become the golden rule in the industry, with manufacturers aiming to become large enterprises capable of attracting investments. Larger production scales can lower costs, and make manufacturers more profitable. However, in the increasingly complicated market there are also reasons behind “downsizing”. This indicates SME luminaire manufacturers can compete against larger manufacturers.

SME luminaire manufacturers become more competitive

Small manufacturers flexibility gives it a more competitive edge. Compared to large manufacturers, SME luminaire manufacturers can spend less time on management and invest more time in innovation to compete with large manufacturers. For large enterprises size and resulting bureaucracy is often an obstacle to innovation. Based on SME's flexibility, luminaire manufacturers’ costs of incorporating new concepts is often lower than industry giants.

Additionally, Internet technology has made huge contributions to the industry, making cloud computing and other innovative businesses very accessible. Once SME manufacturers decide to invest in worker wages, inventory and accounting systems that can procure products through services, and conduct maintenance through automated models that can be maintained at highest levels.

In the Internet era, SMEs need to make the most of available resources, and adjust the company’s development strategies to overcome obstacles and eventually succeed.