Your assignment is to prepare and submit a paper on strategic issue in small and medium enterprises.
The interest has been taken to such an extent that even larger companies like GE have changed some of their methodologies to match those of smaller companies. Small companies are the envy of the business world since they manage to change their operations on the fly and can enter and exit markets with ease which is not available to larger companies. On the other hand, there have been arguments against the wisdom that small companies are flexible and adaptable considering the number of SMEs which have been put out of business since many of them were based on trends. It can be shown with the use of studies and articles that the size of the company is often immaterial when it comes to flexibility and adaptability.
Rather, it is the technology, the culture, the business environment, and the person in charge of the company that lets the company have qualities like being flexible and adaptable to the environment. Despite this, there are several interesting arguments that point towards how SMEs are flexible and adaptable precisely because of their size. Or as in the case of Equation Research Inc. the complete absence of size which makes them a perfect example of a small company. Equation Research is a small company that does not have any physical premises at all and manages its entire seventeen person staff from the internet.
They specialize in getting research done for other companies and conducting product and service-related surveys online (Rupley, 2005).In fact, had it not been for the internet and the various information systems used by Equation Research, it is impossible to think that they could continue their operations. Levy and Powell (1998) made the same deduction that the information systems and the organizational purposes for which the technology is used as well as the technical background in which the organization exists, affect adoption and use by shaping usability and usefulness. Simply stated, if the information system used by the company is adaptable and flexible, the company will become adaptable and flexible as well (Young & Francis, 1993). .