The adoption of social media (web 2.0) in the e-marketing strategy of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) is not yet researched much. Research findings in bigger companies in the USA, Europe and the Netherlands suggest that the issue is high on the think list of marketers and entrepreneurs. But what are the drivers and barriers for small and medium enterprises to make, execute, and further develop their strategy on social media? This paper places the perceptions and actions of 10 SMEs in the Netherlands in the Stages of Growth for e-Business model (SOG-e model) which focuses on e-business maturity. Findings are that general expectations and customer wishes are important drivers and that, besides time and money, the fear of negative comments on the Internet are important barriers.
Small medium enterprises represent the largest share of revenues in the apparel and fashion business, compared to larger integrated companies. Small companies however often have to rely on larger suppliers in order to efficiently produce their products. These larger suppliers however will often prioritize companies that place larger orders. In the impossibility to deliver larger orders, how can these buyers make sure that a producer complies with their requests? In this paper we try to answer this question by applying concepts from the marketing channels literature to the specific context of fashion buying. We conclude that despite that the peculiarities of the fashion business do not foster the formation of long-term commitment, dependent companies can develop sources of power based on knowledge and reputation, but also based on applying non-mediated ways to manage the buyer-seller relationship. Examples of possible power sources for a buyer are: establishing a strong brand that a business partner will use in promoting its proposition, forcing suppliers to make transaction specific investments (which are not redeploy able), specializing in new products and technologies that a supplier will want to understand and use, developing knowledge that can be exchanged in the form of specialized personnel, investing in standardization of communication before the relationship starts in order to reduce administrative costs for both parties. Power sources are most effective when non-mediated, i.e. informal and based on reciprocity; ‘hard’ contracts with punishments (coercive power sources) in case of non-compliance will diminish the willingness to collaborate.
The importance of teaching engineering students innovation development is commonly clearly understood. It is essential to achieve products which are attractive and profitable in the market. To achieve this, an institute of engineering education has to provide students with needed knowledge, skills and attitudes including both technical and business orientation. This is important especially for SME’s. Traditionally, education of engineering provides students with basic understanding how to solve common technical problems. However companies need wider view to achieve new products. Universities of applied Sciences in Oulu and Eindhoven want to research what is the today’s educational situation for this aim, to find criteria to improve the content of the educational system, and to improve the educational system. Important stakeholders are teachers and students within the institute but also key-persons in companies. The research is realized by questionnaires and interviews from which a current situation can be found. The research will also include the opinion of management who give possibilities to change the curriculum. By this research more insight will be presented about how to re-design a current curriculum. The research will act as basis for this discussion in SEFI-conference about formulating a curriculum that includes elements for wide-ranging knowledge and skills to achieve innovations especially in SME’s.
Het project Early STATUS (Early Strategic Alerts for Turnaround of Small businesses) wil een instrument voor het vroegtijdig signaleren van stagnatie bij MKB bedrijven en een adviesmethode om de koers van deze bedrijven te wijzigen onderzoeken en testen. De vraagarticulatie bestond uit 26 interviews en 8 focusgroepen, in het kader van een KIEM subsidieproject. Uit het vooronderzoek komt naar voren dat het kleinere MKB, bedrijven met 10 tot 50 werknemers, kwetsbaar is voor verval: de waan van de dag regeert en er is weinig capaciteit om de bakens te verzetten. Dit is een structureel probleem en komt door de coronacrisis nijpender naar voren. Opvallend is dat accountants en bedrijfsadviseurs moeite hebben problemen tijdig te signaleren en te adresseren. In de wetenschappelijke literatuur is er weinig aandacht voor dit fenomeen. De vraagarticulatie heeft geleid naar de volgende behoefte: “een praktisch instrumentarium te gebruiken door mkb-ondernemers en hun adviseurs om strategische problemen vroegtijdig te signaleren en alle betrokkenen aan te zetten tot ingrijpen.” Het instrumentarium wordt ontwikkeld door een consortium dat bestaat uit 3 lectoren, 4 onderzoekers en 5 studenten van Hogeschool Rotterdam, aangevuld met een externe onderzoeker. Praktijkpartners zijn 2 accountantskantoren, 6 MKB adviesbureaus en accountancybrancheorganisatie SRA. De Universiteit van Leiden, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam en Montpellier Business School leveren academische experts. De hoofdvraag van het onderzoek luidt: “in welke mate draagt een vroegsignaleringsinstrument dat wordt uitgezet via een accountantskantoor bij ondernemers en medewerkers en daaropvolgend een adviesmethode die wordt toegepast door mkb-adviseurs en accountants bij aan het vroeg signaleren en verder voorkomen van verval bij mkb-ondernemingen met 10-50 medewerkers?” Het instrumentarium wordt door het onderzoekconsortium ontwikkeld en vervolgens getest door accountants en mkb-adviseurs bij hun cliënten: maakt het vroegsignaleringsinstrument een eventuele strategische crisis voldoende tijdig duidelijk en stimuleert de adviesmethode de betrokkenen voldoende om daadwerkelijk in te grijpen?
The scientific publishing industry is rapidly transitioning towards information analytics. This shift is disproportionately benefiting large companies. These can afford to deploy digital technologies like knowledge graphs that can index their contents and create advanced search engines. Small and medium publishing enterprises, instead, often lack the resources to fully embrace such digital transformations. This divide is acutely felt in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Scholars from these disciplines are largely unable to benefit from modern scientific search engines, because their publishing ecosystem is made of many specialized businesses which cannot, individually, develop comparable services. We propose to start bridging this gap by democratizing access to knowledge graphs – the technology underpinning modern scientific search engines – for small and medium publishers in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Their contents, largely made of books, already contain rich, structured information – such as references and indexes – which can be automatically mined and interlinked. We plan to develop a framework for extracting structured information and create knowledge graphs from it. We will as much as possible consolidate existing proven technologies into a single codebase, instead of reinventing the wheel. Our consortium is a collaboration of researchers in scientific information mining, Odoma, an AI consulting company, and the publisher Brill, sharing its data and expertise. Brill will be able to immediately put to use the project results to improve its internal processes and services. Furthermore, our results will be published in open source with a commercial-friendly license, in order to foster the adoption and future development of the framework by other publishers. Ultimately, our proposal is an example of industry innovation where, instead of scaling-up, we scale wide by creating a common resource which many small players can then use and expand upon.
Digitalisation has enabled businesses to access and utilise vast amounts of data. Business data analytics allows companies to employ the most recent and relevant data to comprehend situations and enhance decision-making. While the value of data itself is limited, substantial value can be directly or indirectly uncovered from data. This process is referred to as data monetisation. The most successful stories of data monetisation often originate from large corporations, as they have adequate resources to monetise their data. Notably, many such cases arise from prominent Big Tech companies in North America. In contrast, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have lagged behind in utilising their digital data assets effectively. They are frequently constrained by limited resources to build up capabilities and fully exploit their data. This places them at a strategic disadvantage, particularly as digitalisation is progressively reshaping markets and competitive relationships. Furthermore, the use of digital technologies and data are important in addressing societal challenges such as energy conservation, circularity, and the ageing of the population. This lag has been highlighted by SMEs we have engaged with, where managing directors have indicated their desire to operate based on data, but their companies lack the know-how and are unsure of ‘where to start’. Together with eight SMEs and other partners, we have defined a research project to gain insight into the potential and obstacles of data monetisation in SMEs. More specifically, we will explore how SMEs can transform data into strategic assets and create value. We attempt to demonstrate the journey of data monetisation and illustrate different possibilities to create value from data in SMEs. We will take a holistic approach to examine different aspects of data monetisation and their associations. The outcomes of this project are both practical and academic, such as an SME handbook, academic papers, and case studies.
