In 1999, 2 researchers (Huang & Brown) at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia conducted a study amongst 973 small businesses analysing typical SME problems.
The most prevalent areas in which the small businesses have problems
are Sales/Marketing (40.2 per cent),
Human Resource Management (15.3 per
cent), and General Management (14.3 per
cent). Specifically, Promotion, Market Research, and Training are the most frequently encountered problems, all of which are knowledge or skill related, reflecting the general shortage of expertise in small business sector.
It is not that these smaller businesses are not doing any marketing – they would not be in business if they were not – but that the effort in marketing lacks professional input and expertise. And, when businesses turn to the published literature for help, they find that writing on marketing focuses on larger organisations. Managing marketing activity is a different beast within a department of 10 people compared to the owner/manager developing their own marketing.
Regardless of the view among smaller businesses that marketing is a weakness many smaller businesses are very good at marketing. SMEs may even be more responsive to the market and far more flexible than their larger competitors. But these businesses still look enviously at the big consumer brands and wonder how they too can achieve such awareness and provenance. Marketing in smaller businesses tends to concentrate on sales and promotional tactics rather than on the big strategic issues.
And herein lies the problem. Despite the perception, that such wide awareness requires lots of Marketing expenditure, it is actually the lack of strategic competence and knowledge amongst SME owners/managers that prohibits effective Marketing and market awareness of the SME offering. Sales and Marketing are often either lumped together wit Sales taking a precedent over Marketing. As Paul Fifield writes:
Remember:
Sales is about ensuring the customer buys what the company makes. Marketing is about ensuring that the company makes what the customer wants to buy.
Both areas require a different professional skill set and mindset. Companies, regardless of size, should not be lead by either mindset or preference. They should be market-led, not inside-driven. But that is another aspect of the problem altogether.
There are however, fundamentals that can make all the difference. These are Consensio’s SME brand observations based on market experience and marketing literature:
- cultivate brand emotions
- build corporate and product/service brands and understand how to use them
- integrate marketing and brand development
- develop matching brand affiliations
- create a consistent brand logic
- link the brand to the people and personalise it
- Document your logic and keep experimenting with the right media mix
Ten Years later, and without quantifying the number of businesses in WA, I am assuming the same Marketing issues still apply to our SME’s.
Trouble in SMEs in Western Australia: 10 years later
In 1999, 2 researchers (Huang & Brown) at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia conducted a study amongst 973 small businesses analysing typical SME problems.
It is not that these smaller businesses are not doing any marketing – they would not be in business if they were not – but that the effort in marketing lacks professional input and expertise. And, when businesses turn to the published literature for help, they find that writing on marketing focuses on larger organisations. Managing marketing activity is a different beast within a department of 10 people compared to the owner/manager developing their own marketing.
Regardless of the view among smaller businesses that marketing is a weakness many smaller businesses are very good at marketing. SMEs may even be more responsive to the market and far more flexible than their larger competitors. But these businesses still look enviously at the big consumer brands and wonder how they too can achieve such awareness and provenance. Marketing in smaller businesses tends to concentrate on sales and promotional tactics rather than on the big strategic issues.
And herein lies the problem. Despite the perception, that such wide awareness requires lots of Marketing expenditure, it is actually the lack of strategic competence and knowledge amongst SME owners/managers that prohibits effective Marketing and market awareness of the SME offering. Sales and Marketing are often either lumped together wit Sales taking a precedent over Marketing. As Paul Fifield writes:
Both areas require a different professional skill set and mindset. Companies, regardless of size, should not be lead by either mindset or preference. They should be market-led, not inside-driven. But that is another aspect of the problem altogether.
There are however, fundamentals that can make all the difference. These are Consensio’s SME brand observations based on market experience and marketing literature:
Ten Years later, and without quantifying the number of businesses in WA, I am assuming the same Marketing issues still apply to our SME’s.