Tasks

Task1

Small Medium Enterprises

Small medium enterprises, or SMEs as they are widely known, are small to medium scale companies operating at a small scale for the purpose of providing benefits to those people, who may not have access to a large capital (Beck et.al., 2007, pp. 415-417).

Objective

The main objective of the SME's is to provides good and services when the company does not have access to enough capital. They are often family based enterprises, operating at a small scale.

Goals

Their main goal is to increase the productivity of the economy by involving those people as well who do not access or the required skills to work in large-scale companies. Their goal is to utilize the potential of under-skilled or financially unstable people and translate it into something productive.

Core Competencies:

The core competencies of SMEs include low costs of financing. They do not need a lot of capital to operate. The skills of the people employed are often basic. Thus, SMEs does usually find it easier to raise optimum levels of human resources. Decision making process is also easier and faster than other enterprises due to an absence of complex hierarchical structure.

Strategic Control

Strategic control refers to appropriate measures taken by the management to make sure actual outcomes closely align with the initial plans of the company (Stephan & Jindra, 2008, pp.1133.1134). Due to a small scale of operation for SMEs, strategic control process is efficient. The tracking, monitoring and implementing the plans are easier to conduct due to a close proximity of concerned individuals to the actions.

Visions

The visions of SMEs include taking a far more significant role in the development of an economy of any country. Many developing countries, especially, have been utilizing the benefits of SMEs operating in their economy. SMEs visions itself to reduce unemployment by giving ample opportunities for otherwise unemployed people to start up their own business, with whatever skills they have. If they do not have any, other SMEs provide them as a platform to get involved and work in their companies.

Future Directions of the competition

Competition within the SMEs is intense. There are far more SMEs operating than other large scale companies in many countries. Due to this competition, SMEs strive to beat their competitors by coming up with innovative business solutions. These solutions are intended to cost low and only using the human resource they are already provided with. The competition is expected to further increase in the future due to more SMEs to operate in the future after rising levels of unemployment and financial crisis. Many people, who get unemployed from large companies after the company's decision to downsize, are increasingly looking towards SMEs to use their skills and bring it to their advantage.

Needs of customers

The demand from the customers for products and services provided by SMEs is already quite high (De Jong et.al, 2009, pp.423-425). This is due to many people preferring to turn towards cheaper sources of goods and services than other costly alternatives in large scale companies. The process of transactions is also a ...