Growth is on the lips, and in the hearts and minds, of thousands of Small Medium Business owners around the world, as everyone in the business realm tries to find ways of increasing sales revenue and profitability – to only then realise reserves that can be used for investment in further resources that will drive growth.
I have made it my mission for the balance of my working life to talk with open-minded people who own Small Medium Enterprises – wherever they are located in the world – to expand their thinking about scaling their businesses through joining forces (combining their strengths) with like-minded business owners using “composite company structures” such as merged entities, franchises, buying groups/ cooperatives and parent companies.
I have started this discussion:
a) In my first book.
b) Through public speaking.
c) During my time as a Regional Business Advisor under the national New Zealand Regional Business Partner Programme.
d) Whilst lecturing tertiary students at the Eastern Institute of Technology.
e) In the blogs/ posts that I submit to my company website and LinkedIn profile.
Why am I purposely concentrating on this topic ? Because I strongly believe that with 502,000 Small Medium Enterprises (SME’s) trading in New Zealand (and many more than this in the case of other countries) the sheer number of participants per business category is one of the greatest causation factors of the high business failure rate in New Zealand and other countries. Why ? Because the dissection of the “market pie” by many thousands of businesses per business category/ industry is meaning that the market share per participant is insufficient in many cases to enable viability and sustainability. In many cases market share has become a matter of “crumbs” rather than “slices” of the pie.
SME’s simply must combine resources/ strengths/ comparative advantages if they are to survive – and hopefully thrive – into the future…starting right now !
I think it is just SO VERY IMPORTANT that the messages contained in the presentation files below reach – and are understood by – as many business people as possible. The future of a more sustainable business community certainly won’t materialise from still more new entrants joining it – rather, it RELIES on businesses becoming more open/ willing to combine their respective strengths/ resources/ comparative advantages (e.g. IP) to achieve increased scales of operation. And once improved scales of operation start to occur, increased scale will enable such fortunate businesses to receive/ enjoy scale-related advantages that will produce even greater scales of operation. Scale builds scale…
This presentation was presented to Eastern Institute of Technology students during 2017, and invoked a “wow” reaction from many commerce students:
Changing the SME Business Model
This presentation was presented to Rotary members during 2016, and prompted the Rotary president concerned to provide “Testimonial #1” here in the Testimonials section of my company website:
Alternative Options for Growing a Small Medium Enterprise