A week off with my family over Halloween had me immersed in children’s stories, and reflecting… “A Mouse took a stroll through a deep dark wood. A Fox saw the mouse and the mouse looked good.” It struck me that for many small and medium equities (SMEs) business owners they feel very like the Mouse in the Gruffalo story. They often operate in sectors where there are large long established dominate players that seem to dwarf their efforts to grow and threaten their survival. As smaller businesses, they are often taking a journey on a path through a corporate wood that is full of changing risks and issues many of which are outside their control, such as currency rates or offshore competition or employment laws or tax and accounting rules.
Well like the Mouse in the Gruffalo story SMEs should use their small agile business structures and entrepreneurial energies to their advantage. Rather than being worried about the large competitors they should offer targeted products and services in unique ways to niche markets with excellent customer service in ways that large businesses can only roar about. It is great here that many are achieving this and as SME’s we now make up some 99.9% of the private sector economy.
Technology development is on the side of the SME with products such as Xero, Receipt Bank and LEAP market leading examples. Modern proactive support service firms, such as Ross Boyd Limited (RBL), can take the sting out of the changes to accounting and taxation.
With the new Small Business Taskforce sticking up for SMEs there is a new supporting voice. Maybe it is time for your business to outfox the Gruffalo and be the scariest creature in your market? The team at RBL provide business strategy advice and practical accounting and tax solutions for SMEs.