Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label business collaboration

Collaborating Small Business to Overcome Financial, Social and Political Constraints

Small businesses have a hard time competing due to financial, social, and political constraints on their resources. A paper by Evans (2013) explores the political dynamics and process of institutional change that underlines policy approaches that focus on modernizing small firms in Portugal. Their comparative-historical analysis helps show that successful industrial upgrading relies on intense and sustained political action led by leadership in an effort to develop benchmarks and proper implementation of financial strategy.  Small businesses often lack resources to compete in a market dominated by better financed international companies. Payroll, financing, business, systems, etc… were not always updated appropriately. Small businesses also regularly failed to meet inappropriate legislation focused toward larger organizations leaving them unable to grow or develop.   Other problems small business face is the legal and political structure of a country that focuses more he

Using Marketing Databases to Foster International Growth in Multiple Businesses

The global world is complex and contains floating pieces of information that are difficult for marketing researchers and businesses to collect and understand. For most businesses it can be difficult to collect data in a way that is useful for strategic decision-making. According to a paper by Michael Anastasiou businesses should consider using shared databases that allow for higher levels of understanding and analysis of international market information (2012).  Because the market continues to change it is important for businesses to have relevant information for making adjustments that meet new demands.   By collecting information about the international market, companies can adjust their strategies to predict and respond to market changes.  Lack of information can be deadly for businesses and even more so for small businesses that lack capital to recover from mistakes. A deficiency in market research and technological capabilities to collect and analyze data can lead to

The Competitive Benefits of Business Collaboration

Organizations collaborate for a number of reasons that range from necessity to strategic enhancement. Smaller organizations may collaborate to develop stronger responses to collective problems (Sowa, 2009) while larger organizations collaborate with smaller organizations to incorporate new competencies. Collaboration is an exercise of hedging the different knowledge and skills of each organization to compete together on the global market.  Without collaboration businesses may suffer for a lack of resources and abilities to meet new market pressures. Organizations collaborate due to internal and external drivers resulting from changes in the environment (Yankey & Willen, 2005). These organizations do not have the current internal or external abilities to meet the new demands of global change. Collaboration gives them an opportunity to work together to face market pressure (external drivers) or share abilities and knowledge to lower operational costs (internal drivers).

Growing Small Business and the Economy Through Clustering

Small and medium businesses have difficulty getting past a critical threshold that allows them to grow in the market. Helping them collaborate with like-minded businesses helps their growth potential. A paper by Dhakal, et. al. (2013) discusses an open-innovation concept of living labs that allows stakeholders and customers to engage in the co-creation process together. They studied a cluster in Australia to show how this enhances business development and the economic engine.   A living lab is a user-centered open innovation ecosystem (Hippel, 1986).   It uses modern technology to foster communication between stakeholders and customers to co-develop products.   The natural environment becomes the testing grounds for new products and services and this allows users to offer feedback on the success of changes and provide ideas on how to improve on the products and services.  It provides a collaborative space (virtual or physical) that distributes problem-solving tools, capacit