Incremental competition in the Italian Independent Aftermarket (IAM) is forcing local Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to exert a tighter control over their performance and financial results. As new big players have entered the market, SMEs were encouraged to introduce performance management systems (PMS) in order to support senior leadership teams with the decision-making process. Nonetheless, the introduction of these systems in SMEs is still scarce due to limitations regarding both SMEs specific characteristics and dynamics (Garengo et al. 2005) and characteristics of the traditional performance measurement systems (Busi et al., 2015). The objective of this dissertation is to investigate whether the introduction of financial PMS in Italian IAM SMEs operating in the Wholesale Spare Part Distributors sector leads to significant improvements in their financial performance.