Saturday
Nov 22nd
| Growth without manpower - the secret of success |
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| Written by Professor Peter Wyer | ||||||
Page 3 of 4 The Potential Role of ICT in Facilitating Small Business Development and Growth Integrating the above small business-specific pockets of insight with regard to: (a) the potential development advantages that are associated with ‘smallness of operation’; (b) the possible unique problem-types that can derive from size- and/or owner manager-related characteristics and constraints; and (c) the need for a strategic ‘learn the business forward’ mode of management provides sound informing context for identifying how ICT can significantly facilitate small business development and growth. The growth-achieving owner manager is aware of potential benefits to be derived from ‘smallness’ and is progressively active in seeking ways of realising such benefits. He or she is equally astute in recognising how new, never previously encountered, problems can and do impact on development intentions – and strives to effectively circumvent, or provide creative solutions to, such problems. Integral to this seizing of benefits and opportunities and coping with problems is a high level owner manager strategic (and operational) learning capability. For the less astute owner manager advantages of ‘smallness of operation’ are not fully realised; size-related problems hold back business development (not least in confounding exploitation of advantages of ‘smallness’) and requisite owner manager strategic learning occurs infrequently. For the more progressive owner manager effective use of ICT is paramount, not least in terms of the day-to-day management and control of existing business activity. For example, the use of Email, word processing, spread sheets and database management as key areas of office support. And tight and effective short interval planning and control is increasingly facilitated within the successful small business by ICT applications in the management and control of goods inwards, stocking levels, the behaviour of outstanding debtors and in servicing of customers in a timely, quality manner. However, reflection on the complexity of the small business strategic learning process in terms of owner manager need to identify and act upon unpredictable external change situations, if business growth and development is to be achieved, brings attention to the potential for utilisation of ICT as a key potential ‘learning’ facilitator in this respect. The example within the previous section of how successful owner managers strategically learn provides informing context for consideration of how processes of small business strategic management/strategic learning can be significantly enhanced by more effective use of ICT. In short, due to the unpredictability and uncertainty of the external environment, owner managers are often faced with change situations that they have never before encountered. If we assume that we as individuals use mental models (or ‘worldviews’ or frames of reference) that we have built up from our past experience to interpret change situations, then we will automatically cope with a change situation similar to one encountered in the past by using our existing mental models. But if we encounter a totally new change situation, then our existing mental models are inadequate as a frame of reference to deal with that change and identify opportunities. An owner manager faced with never before encountered external change thus has to try and modify or replace his or her existing inadequate mental models (‘worldviews’). For the owner manager, as the insight above demonstrates, this involves ‘trying on for size’ the world views of others in order to build up a mental model that better helps him or her to identify and act upon the change situation. Here ICT has a major role to play in underpinning owner manager strategic learning. Firstly, ICT can facilitate access to perspectives and worldviews of key players on the boundaries of the small firm’s activities (such as suppliers, agents, distributors, customers, competitors); and to other information sources, such as industry and market reviews. But secondly, in facilitating the working up of received information and perspectives in terms of relevance to the specific small business – in order that the resultant understanding can inform appropriate change in the strategic behaviour of the firm. In short, raw data and out-of-context perspective may be of little value to an owner manager: give six owner managers the same base development information and only one works it through to opportunity. The need and the potential is for ICT to facilitate the small business strategic learning process – to help the owner manager source different perspectives and worldviews that may run counter to his or her own and to extract and ‘try on for size’ those perspectives and, where appropriate, integrate and synthesise them in a manner which ultimately brings about adjustment to the strategic development activity of the business and enhance its competitive position. |
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