Kaizen Cost Management Technique and Profitability of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in Ogun State, Nigeria

The study examines the relationship that exists between Kaizen cost management technique and profitability of small and medium scale enterprise in Ogun State, Nigeria. It evaluates the nature of Kaizen cost management technique and how it can be adopted to reduce and control operational costs of SMEs. The study adopted primary data and a sample of 269 respondents consisting of small and medium scale enterprises were purposively chosen from Agro-allied, confectionery, general trading and transport business in Ogun State Nigeria. The study population comprised 2,685 enterprises obtained through a preliminary survey of SMEs in the three senatorial districts of Ogun States namely Ogun West, Ogun East, Ogun Central. A structured questionnaire was used to elicit information on relevant variables from respondents. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was adopted to analyze the questionnaire. The result of statistical test of hypothesis shows that there is a significant relationship between Kaizen cost management technique and profitability of SMEs. A further test of significant relationship between cost components and profitability of SMEs using Regression Analysis shows that only fixed cost reliably predicted the average annual profit by a factor of 0.099. Key-words-: Kaizen, cost management, technique and Profitabilit