SMEs should make agility a way to increase profit

Being small doesn't make you agile. It just means you're small.

Agility is the ability to quickly respond to opportunity. Increasing business agility is a key part of achieving opportunity-based growth. SMEs are small and don't have large budgets to spend on business development. They can, however, become very agile.

An agile business has these two characteristics:

• the speed to evaluate and price an opportunity fast enough to get a head-start
• the flexibility to convert the opportuniity into a sale

SMEs need to be fast and flexible. It's their key weapon against larger, more efficient competitors. The forces of economic change means that periodically the rules change more quickly than big firms can respond. This is the opportunity for smart, prepared smaller enterprises. But being small doesn't make you agile. It just means you're small.

How are SMEs naturally suited to agility?

Most ideas about better decision support come from the world of large companies. SME owners and managers are different.

SME owners and managers prefer practical tools which can be understood widely in their business.

Making good decisions quickly

SME business decisions must be made quickly. Good decision support for small and medium sized business is about applying good techniques to simple, relevant information

SME management teams can get much better support without much investment in new systems or people. Your existing finance team and business information is a great resource just waiting to be used more effectively. 

Improving SME decision making is the final step in the GrowthPath's FAB program; it can also be offered separately.