**Abstract**

In the last decade, scholars showed an interest in alluding to compliance as a necessity to support small business performance in the last decades. Over the years, organisations have been frequently criticised for failing to comply with the quality standards such as the South African National Standards (SANS) 9001/ISO 9001 require effective implementation of Quality Management Systems and SANS 342, which provides specifications for diesel fuel products. Quality standards matrix adopted by the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) is frequently used as a set of detailed specifications, requirements, various guidelines and characteristics to assure that the product, service or process is fit for purpose. Even though public and semi-autonomous institutions understand the value of subscribing and complying with quality standards, there is still a gap in the literature regarding the enforcement and compliance of quality standards in small business practices. There is a relationship between the adoption of quality standards and business excellence. Government can tap on the competitiveness of small, medium and micro-sized enterprises (SMMEs) and address their challenges and barriers that limit SMMEs to acquisition and compliance of statutory quality management systems.

**Keywords:** business excellence, customer satisfaction, quality management systems (QMSs), quality standards, small, micro and medium-sized enterprises, total quality management (TQM)
