In a developing country like India, the entrepreneurs in small and medium enterprises face a large number of problems related to managerial skills and adequate resources for further expansion of their business. Presently, implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) practices is another significant obstacle faced by the Indian entrepreneurs due to tough competition in the national and international markets on account of globalization. Good quality management is the need of the hour as it improves the competitiveness, effectiveness and flexibility of the organization. In this paper, an attempt has been made to explore the problems faced by the entrepreneurs of small and medium enterprises in the implementation of TQM practices. One-way ANOVA has been used to find the significant difference between the demographical variables of the entrepreneurs and impeding factors in the implementation of TQM in small and medium enterprises on a sample of 150 entrepreneurs collected from four states of North India. The findings reveal that the entrepreneurs in lower age group face these problems relatively more than the entrepreneurs in higher age group. Further, entrepreneurs having education up to technical level face these problems relatively less as compared to entrepreneurs who have education up to a lower level.

All countries, whether developed or developing, try to provide better facilities for growth and promotion of entrepreneurship in small and medium enterprises. To promote entrepreneurship, these countries organize conferences, trade fairs or other trade promotional activities, conduct market survey and research regarding new products and services, provide training and information about new products and latest technology, introduce latest products and services, advertise related products and services, and encourage local and national government agencies for promoting small and medium enterprises and exchange programs for young entrepreneurs. Despite these facilities in the present era of modernization and competitive business environment, small enterprises are facing serious challenges concerned with the implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM).

TQM is defined as a management approach that tries to achieve and sustain long-term organizational success by encouraging employee feedback and participation, and satisfying customer needs and expectations. It is considered to be a powerful tool for enacting comprehensive improvement in all the functional areas of business that include production, process, procedures, working environment, employees, marketing and management (Mithani, 2010). It stresses on a systematic, integrated, consistent, organization-wide perspective involving everyone and everything (Poornima, 2010). It is done through quality participation of all employees resulting in high quality products and services to attain customer satisfaction (Ramakrishnan, 2005). Indian organizations, large or small, have to implement it, if they want to survive (Arora and Sood, 2003). Good quality management improves the competitiveness, effectiveness and flexibility of an organization, and is an essential way of planning, organizing and understanding each activity, and depends on each individual at each level (Oakland, 2004). Against this backdrop, the present paper attempts to examine the problems faced by entrepreneurs of small and medium enterprises in North India in the implementation of TQM practices.

Entrepreneurship Development Journal, Total Quality Management (TQM), Small and Medium Enterprises, Demographic Variables, Education-Wise Analysis, Experience-Wise Analysis, Age-Wise Analysis, Problem of Benchmarking in Implementing TQM .