SME's caught in the middle...

Yesterday on La Vanguardia' section DINERO I read some very interesting articles about the SME's. A contribution was on  SME's and strategy. Sure, the title is more or less expected: "The SME's failure in Strategy". In fact, as I read along, we saw that many SME's don't even have time to plan whichever kind of strategy. Others perfect products or services instead... which are completely obsolete. The reasons for this are clear: the day-to-day business absorbs so much time and energy that there is no room left for "strategy". Nothing new. Another article was on SME's and innovation. Therein we read that the lack of innovation is the main hurdle to Catalan SME's to export their goods or services... again, nothing new.

Among "no-time-for-strategy", a small innovation culture (or lack of it) and, I'd add, difficulties in financing the export process, the SME's are caught up in a really ugly triangle. Escaping this triangle is everything but easy. But escaping from it means getting into the realm of competitiveness, the dream of every SME or entrepreneur. 

But then if you add to this triangle the lack of a critical size, the resistance to change and other factors we might say that SME's are caught in the middle of a polygone and escaping from here is really tough. But we must do it, there is no other way around if SME's are to survive and shall be in the future, as they are today, Catalonia's economical backbone -- or many other areas' economical backbone!