This paper is an attempt to understand the external technology acquisition (ETA) process of the machinery SME sector in Bangalore city, India. With the onset of economic liberalization, Bangalore based machinery SMEs have significantly shifted their ETAs from India to abroad, particularly Germany and Japan, among others. The primary objective of ETAs is to enhance their competitiveness by means of improving product quality and productivity as well as meeting customer demand. Replacing outdated machinery or overcoming technological obsolescence is a primary objective of only a few. As a result, majority of the SMEs has gone for multiple ETAs since their inception and we found a statistically significant positive correlation between firm age and number of ETAs. The present study has made two empirical contributions: (i) We have thrown light on the core technology up-gradation issue - How do SMEs approach the problem of external technology acquisition in the current globalization era? (ii) We are able to identify and develop a map of ETA process based on the "learning and experiences" of these SMEs.