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Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs)

Strengths and Weaknesses of SMEs

 

Modern SMEs

Entrepreneurship

Small Company

 

10 Main Strengths

10 Main Weaknesses

Stronger team culture

More customer focused

More responsive to market needs

Innovate faster

Highly visible management team

Low bureaucracy

Informal working environment

Easier cross-functional collaboration

Quick to seize opportunities

Higher flexibility

Lower brand awareness

Poorer access to finance

Resource constraints

Harder to retain a high caliber staff

Lack of some skills

Lower job security

Less strategic thinking

Less strategic planning

Lower standardization

Weaker bargaining position

 

 

 

In today's rapidly changing world, the real force behind the success of rapidly growing innovative SMEs is rooted in their strategic flexibility and ability to adapt.

SMEs have far fewer embedded systems and processes that constrain flexibility, impede fast decision-making or slow the speed of experimentation and execution.

 

 

   

In SMEs, the owners and managers are quite often one and the same, resulting in the perfect alignment of decision-making and value innovation. Governance is usually concentrated in one or two people who are very close to the customers, the operations,  and the business environment. This creates rapid feedback loops to the decision-makers.

 

 

 

SMEs Head of Growth  

Head of Growth
is a new top-management job that is expected to become a standard function in the coming years in both SMEs and larger corporations.

 

 

   

SMEs tend to have employees with a broad job descriptions and operate in a less structured environment. Employees of rapid growth SMEs ('gazelles') spend less time worrying about process, and more time on getting the job done relative to the employees of large firms that compete in mature markets.

 

 

 

 

As a result, SMEs enjoy a significant advantage in their ability  to evolve rapidly, to react quickly to developments in the marketplace, and to make the necessary changes to their competitive positioning, which, in turn, enhances their competitiveness. Yet, the lack of formal policies, systems and structures may become a significant drag on operational effectiveness.

 

 

Vadim Kotelnikov teachings

Business is not a money tool, it is a tool to make people happier. Great business grows out of entrepreneurial passion towards an inspiring entrepreneurial vision.

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