Big business schmizzness - its SME's that drive the economy | SMLXL - Engagement Marketing and Communication principles from Alan Moore

Big business big schimzness – SME’s create new wealth

October 13th, 2009

Excuse me for pointing this out but 80% of the GDP of this country comes from SME’S, even though big media likes to focus on ‘big business’, and ‘big things’. The reality is that the engine room of growth in the UK are the SME’s.

Yet, every SME is today confronted with some truly epic challenges. The seismic evolution of economic powerbases, the biggest in 150 years, that is now well under way, means that by 2050 England will be the 7^thmost powerful economy in the world, but a country mile behind China, India and the US and even trailing Brazil.

The implications are these:

We face a fierce fight for economic survival
A fight for resources
A fight for talent – and for the best-educated young
And a fight for the space of mind of your customers

The era of set piece competition is over. This is “change the world” time, it is not quite a global level playing field …but there is no “fringe” anymore, new technologies are deeply democratic, we are rapidly moving to a world where everyone can be connected and by 2015 five billion people will be connected to a mobile device – that is a 100 fold increase in networked traffic. Networks; economic, cultural and media are becoming the nervous system of society. The key is application – more than innovation, and without a punitive price tag.

And all this social media twaddle means companies are not looking at this properly or strategically. ‘Its for not us’ they say, or ‘christ that’s too hard’, with ‘jobs worth’ civil servants creating a toxic quagmire whilst banging on about ‘creativity’ and ‘innovation,’ and business advisors clueless in advising SME’s as to how they should and could compete and succeed – bollocks.

Even the ‘big strategists’ poncing around the Digital Britain, are merely creating a digital plumbers guide to the future.

So the question we must pose to ourselves and that we must individually and collectively answer is; how does one successfully compete in a global market place? How can one harness and utilise communication networks, to attract, and engage, potential customers? What type of business models work in the networked economy, and how does one scale in the networked economy?

We must be aware of the structural changes, understand them and then embrace them. If we accept that as a truth then that truth changes what we make, how we make it and how in fact we market and communicate with our customers.

SME’s have notoriously not had access to world class, communication and marketing/sales expertise, but this has to now change, and, we cannot wait for governments to do it for you. Globalisation operates on Internet time. Governments tend to be mogodons by nature.

This is down to you – you need to learn how to compete in a networked global economy – you must become the change you want to see in the world.

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