SME Management Consultant Examination study guide
SME Management Consultant Examination · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The SME Management Consultant Examination (中小企業診断士試験) is Japan's national qualification for professionals who diagnose and advise small and medium-sized enterprises. Holders work as independent consultants, in regional financial institutions, in public support organisations, or as in-house strategists. The SME Management Consultant Examination study guide has 8 sections and about 2,814 words.
01Economic Policy and Business Environment
This domain checks whether you can read the macro and regulatory environment as a set of concrete constraints and opportunities facing a small firm, not as abstract theory. Expect items on how monetary and fiscal policy transmit to SME costs, exchange-rate exposure, competition and fair-trade rules, labour-cost regulation, and industry structure.
349 words, about 2 min02Financial Accounting and Corporate Finance
Questions here test whether you can move from reported numbers to a decision: how K-IFRS recognition choices change the ratios, how to decompose return on equity, how to price capital, and how to judge an investment or a working-capital problem. Revenue (K-IFRS 1115).
353 words, about 2 min03Business Management and Organizational Theory
This domain tests structural design and human-side execution: choosing a structure that fits strategy and environment, diagnosing coordination failure, and selecting an evidence-based change approach for a small firm with limited managerial slack. Structure follows strategy (Chandler).
339 words, about 2 min04Operations Management and Production Strategy
You are tested on the arithmetic of flow, capacity and quality: how work-in-process relates to throughput and time, where capacity is actually lost, how much to order, and whether a process is capable of its specification. WIP = throughput × flow time.
344 words, about 2 min05Marketing and Sales Strategy
This domain tests whether you can convert a market position into a priced, channelled, measurable plan: segmentation and targeting, positioning, the marketing mix, and unit economics that show whether a customer is worth acquiring. Segments must be measurable, accessible, substantial and differentiable.
357 words, about 2 min06Management Information Systems and Digital Transformation
This domain tests whether you can connect an information system to a business objective, choose sensibly between package, custom and cloud options, quantify the investment, and anticipate the organisational failure modes that kill digital projects. Information strategy planning and enterprise architecture start from business capability and process, then derive data, application and infrastructure layers.
342 words, about 2 min07Small and Medium Enterprise Policy and Support Systems
This domain tests your working knowledge of how an SME is legally classified, which support instrument fits which problem, and what eligibility and duplication rules govern access to public programmes. The Framework Act on SMEs defines an SME by size standards set per industry in the Enforcement Decree, using employee counts and average revenue or assets.
370 words, about 2 min08Business Consulting Practice and Diagnostic Methods
This domain tests method: how to scope an engagement, structure an ambiguous problem, gather and test evidence, find root causes rather than symptoms, prioritise, and hand over something the client can sustain. Agree the question, the decision it feeds, the deliverable, the data access and the boundaries before analysis.
360 words, about 2 min