Hope for SMEs – In behind the jargon and the disruption
Big business, the related jargon and corporate speak seem; imprecise, emotive, often confusing and hence disturbing- a worried SME client recently told me. Disruption and an accelerating and constantly changing business landscape are threatening.
But look closely. The rules of engagement and the drivers actually look quite familiar and you know them already.
A part of what we do at First Fiveis supporting, mentoring and growing small to medium business and organizations, or SMEs, those often officially described as up to 20 employees – although we think it could be as much as 50 - 100. But that’s another day.
SMEs account for over 95% of all businesses in NZ, and probably the rest of the world also. But they don’t have their own language.
Big businesses and organizations, the suppliers, partners, local bodies, government agencies and even media, that SMEs often interact and partner with, do.
Big business, it seems, operates in an online, connected and increasingly global world (a tautology). The nature, constancy and pace of change, is revolutionary, tipping existing business models on their heads and, well…disrupting. After all, who, in times before, had to navigate VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) infested business waters.
Disruptors, it is said, assail traditional (and by implication obsolete) models and ways of thinking and doing things. But that’s always happened. There is simply a lot more of it, it is happening faster and coming from new directions and across terrestrial boundaries.
And, it may also now be true, that the world’s biggest accommodation company owns no hotels, or the world’s biggest taxi company owns no taxis.
But often, and in these cases in particular, it is the model that disrupts. The technology sits in behind it as the enabler. For instance, what stopped or continues to stop the world’s largest hotel chain from disrupting itself. I’ll wager confidently it certainly was not their (lack of) knowledge of it, or the proprietary nature of the software, or the capital resources required to build it. Ditto for the world’s largest taxi company.
And when is change revolutionary and when is it evolutionary. Is revolutionary less than one year, less than ten years or simply much faster than in the past. Or is it more correctly reserved for something never seen before. Was the first microwave oven, albeit refreshingly, just a supercharged small oven, that admittedly could cook, reheat, or even thaw, faster than its predecessors. Was the first supersonic commercial jet revolutionary, or simply quite a bit faster than its commercial predecessors, if not quite as commercially viable - yet.
My point finally, was this ……
However, labelled, change will be ongoing and increasingly rapid. It will move faster in some industries than others. It may (now) increasingly travel across traditional geographic boundaries. Emotive, convenient and clipped jargon will follow it around.
Refreshingly, what hasn’t materially changed for business, and for SMEs are the marketing and customer behaviour drivers that still sit in behind and underpin it. In short, the basics.
Businesses still need to deliver value for money (mostly). Consumers still want value for money (more mostly) and are happy to entertain new ways of getting it. Consumers still want to save or spend their money in ways that appeal. You get the drift.
It’s simply that the way it is done and where it is coming from is changing. And it’s mostly evolutionary. Which is not to say it isn’t still rapid or at least, faster than it used to be.
As an old colleague of mine once observed, if you wait till you can see the tsunami, it may be too late. The challenge is to get better at judging whether; it will arrive (at all), in what likely form, and its speed of approach, to work out what you need to do and, as importantly, when you need to do it. So, a bit like weather forecasting really.
But no one today can or should say it wasn’t possible to “see it coming”. There now. Easy.
At First Five, we deal in (and for) small to mediums – their drivers, challenges and goals, efficiency, planning and growth ambitions. Years of business bruises and scars are only invisible because they are mostly on the inside. Importantly, we deal principally in what is fit for purpose and speak in everyday language. Acronyms however, remain a work in progress.
Mike Zino is an approachable and former Marketing Manager, CEO and a current Director of First Five Limited