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Oct 11th
| Growth without manpower - the secret of success |
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| Written by Professor Peter Wyer | ||||||
Page 4 of 4 The Challenge Ahead Design and development of support systems for small businesses are not as yet sufficiently based on depth of understanding of the idiosyncrasies and informalities of small firm management processes or the unique problems they potentially face. This is reflected in the constraints to effective small business uptake of ICT that many of the owner managers in the above quoted research into the small business strategic management process report. For example, several owner managers perceive complexity of use: partly due to a lack of training, they suggest that it is time consuming and difficult to use search engines to quickly pinpoint information suitable to inform decision making in a timely manner. A common complaint is that of information overload and difficulties in teasing out relevant information. A key issue is that of converting data and information to the small business specific context: this reflects the complexity of the small business strategic learning process discussed above. Of particular significance appears to be the issue of tacit knowledge that is retained by the sender: in face-to-face communication any tacit element of a ‘message’ could be teased out by the information recipient, but remains lost to technological communication. Clearly, the above ‘sample’ examples are not scientifically based and several of the owner managers participating in the research would benefit from foundation level training and coaching, not least in the shifting of a somewhat technology-averse perception (at the extreme some of our owner managers have a mindset still in the form of a communication culture that remains rooted in telephone and fax). But several of the identified constraints have their origins in a lack of support provider empathy of the complexity of the small business development context and integral strategic learning and management processes. Contemporary business organisations are predominantly dealing with unexpected and unpredictable change situations and an organic learning ones way along with the use of experiment, trial and error and ‘try out’ may be more appropriate forms of small business strategic control of the uncertain environment. Integral to this is the ‘trying on for size’ of the worldviews of key informants and small business owner manager/managers using this insight to challenge and adjust their own worldviews. Opportunity exists to consider the potential use of ICT to better facilitate this form of small business strategic control process. This is likely to require a change in traditional mindsets on behalf of ICT and other small business support providers and small business owner managers/managers. It is to such a challenge that LeadSure in its support of SMEs is rising.
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