The Family Business and Strategic Planning
The world of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is an area vaguely familiar to many people, especially for those who have responsibility for policy development support for the sector. There are myths that affect the decisions of these people, however, there is an even more worrying is that some small business owners keep their own myths, the greatest of these is that they believe that their problems are caused by the lack credit and sometimes even think it’s their only problem. Studies have shown that it is not, the problem lies mainly in poor management.
These same studies on SME problems frequently cited as: declining sales, declining profitability, late payments from customers, among others. Only half of the companies pursuing a strategy of specialization, which aims to strengthen or expand the market presence of its traditional products. The specialization strategy is more prevalent among SMEs with more than 500 employees.
The main areas to which the managers of these businesses pay more attention are: sales, production, customer service and quality. The research and development, as well as strategic planning activities, are secondary to the attention of senior management. Somewhere in between lies the area of procurement and logistics. The intensity of the use of computers is low, especially among the smallest.