Strategic outsourcing of SMEs in the context of industry 4.0: Evidence from Serbia

Abstract

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018. The aim of this research is to examine how strategic outsourcing is, along with the use of Industry 4.0 concepts, affecting organizational performances (i.e. lead time) in SMEs. For this purpose multivariate data analysis was performed using the sample from European Manufacturing Survey obtained in Serbia. The empirical results indicate that manufacturing SMEs that have implemented certain Industry 4.0 concepts should outsource assembly process and service offers to decrease lead time. In addition, SMEs in manufacturing sector owning in-house R&D achieve higher performance. However, this is neglected by large number of SMEs.