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Lack of planning 'harming SME success'

Published On 8 May 2007 at 11:54:38

Many new small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) fail because owners do not implement a sound long-term business plan from the start, a leading consultant has warned.

Lynda Purser, the director of the Institute of Business Consulting, said that many newly established SMEs were more concerned with the day-to-day details of running their new business and so failed to plan for future development.

"I think they probably think that they can do everything at once. They don't plan well enough - they tend to rush into everything," Ms Purser explained.

"Thinking in a strategic way is a rare commodity and people tend to address the more day-to-day operational issues too readily without having thought through a really good plan for the business."

Ms Purser said that new SMEs often fail to achieve the goals they do set themselves because they find it hard to obtain finance.

"Quite often, the big bugbear with small businesses is that they don't have the funds to achieve the goals that they set themselves - so they just go round in circles," she added.

Last month, the firm PKF revealed that 54 per cent of SMEs in the UK were operating without any long-term business plan.

 

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