SME Survive, grow and sustain!

Amidst all the doom and gloom SMEs are best placed to forgo radical environmental and economic forces. Whether this be through diversifying product ranges, customer demographics for marketing or simply through streamlining costs its a perfect time for small enterprises to meet the next growth factor.

Essentially small businesses and entrepreneurs are given little insight into how 'the recession is the best time to set up and grow' simply because there is no agreed formula. However it is simple to derive best-practice from those larger organisations that have survived a weak economy. We're all aware of Woolworth's and Zavvi as to core examples, they failed to strategically focus resources on both maintaining a successful customer proposition, maintain a profitable and stable supply chain and importantly innovate through marketing, research and competitive market based analysis.

As a SME your probably already tearing your hair out as finance is hard to come by and this can impact on innovative and potentially exciting growth enhancing plans...But banks aren't the only investors. Chamber of Commerce conferences and networking go a long way to opening new financial revenue streams. Linkedin is a Business Networking Tool often forgotten by small business directors who can utilise the search tool as a market entry aide, finding the right people, right places and right time essential to a successful entry node.

It is a belief through my research into the competitive environment and sustaining resource based growth that our uniqueness is what makes SMEs so exciting. Clients can be offered a strategically tailored product/solution that larger competitors cannot meet, their SLA's are restrictive as growth undermines the B2B relationship...its so important that to maintain competitive advantage SMEs identify their cultural dynamics whether innovation, teamwork or business model and construct changes around these. Recognising tacit knowledge is a trigger for success, often I've seen small businesses loose out of contracts and lucrative projects due to loosing key personnel through over task focused directors.

These directors are more commonly observed in SMEs and rightly so have a vested interest in a business built up from scratch. It is important to understand that under the foundations of growth and sustained business development should be a shift to helicopter management. This intrinsically involves recognising the implementation of feedback and market innovation mechanisms with senior employees who often have the bright ideas to enhance business propositions. Extrinsically we need to maintain controls and standards whilst directors become the marketeers and business develop-mentors - so audit and data analysis tools become vital in monitoring and measuring internal performance as growth enhancers are created.

Congruent with the sign of the times HR and importantly the term Strategic Human Resources Management  (SHRM) is competitively imperative for SMEs to become successful large enterprises. Recognising opportunities, undergoing internal and external self-audits of operational forces (supply networks, sourcing and purchasing and competitor actions) and often overlooked performance management and reward mechanisms for attracting, retaining and developing people who drive the business. Invariably cost is an issue in many small to medium enterprises, however the TCC (Total Cost Concept) from logistics theory denotes the inherent total cost and cost benefit advantages for invest-able finances. I've seen small businesses almost loose their key skills and senior employees because of poor reward and recognition, when asked why they respond; "The costs are too high".

A turning point for the organisations I have seen comes from recognising the market opportunities; employing measurement and data capture tools to focus a reward and performance management system directly related to strategic aims and objectives. When shown the true opportunity cost of loosing a vital team member or senior consultant directors are amazed at the difference not only reward investments can make but also in using behavioural and value/cultually driven performance management frameworks to entrench commitment and build sustainable growth for the future.