It can be done! As an SME you may not have the scale or brand power of a corporate giant, but that does not mean you can’t win big! At Rholben Consulting we have helped companies do this by adapting their offering, embracing agility and specialising to deliver an unbeatable client experience.
What can your company do that a larger corporation will struggle to deliver?
Once a business transitions from a start-up to a SME – turning a profit, hiring experienced staff and landing key clients – it gains something powerful: agility with credibility.
Organisational structures are generally flat, and key stakeholders tend to have high visibility on the day-to-day. Consequently, clients feel connected to higher management (decision makers) at the company and see requests being actioned. There are few barriers to engagement.
Compare this to a large corporation where being agile can often be hard work. They tend to operate with layered hierarchies and rigid processes – all necessary when managing 1,000’s of clients and employees.
It is difficult to be flexible when you are a large organisation – there will always be corporate red tape.
Understanding Corporate Weak Spots.
Through working with both SMEs and larger organisations, we’ve observed a few common challenges that corporates face. Challenges that SMEs can often turn to their advantage.
- Slower decision-making due to complex approval chains.
- Reluctance to personalise solutions for individual clients, due to the risk of disrupting scale-driven processes.
- Limited access to senior executives, making it harder for clients to influence outcomes.
- Bureaucratic onboarding, turning what should be a quick win into a time consuming, painful slog.
- Fragmented client service, with too many handoffs and a loss of personal connection.
For listed companies, quarterly reporting requirements can affect investment decisions and short-term initiatives. Making the quarterly earnings number is critical. Share price can trump (sorry!) all other considerations.
Alternatively, making the monthly payroll is critical and that is more likely to be an SME challenge. For large scale opportunities expect this to be used against you by bigger competitors and looked at by prospective clients.
So, with this as a backdrop how do you compete in an arena with big global companies?
Here are a few ideas.
If you are competing with bigger firms your strategy needs to be sharp, focused and execution-led.
- Be a specialist and own your niche. Find one or two verticals / sectors / regions that are under resourced and under serviced. Become the go-to partner!
- Aggressively target some of the bigger potential clients. Having one or two large scale, high profile, clients as part of your portfolio will significantly enhance your credibility.
- Deliver a premium client experience. Create multiple touch points for your client within the organisation. For example., make sure your client meets the CEO, Head of Operations, Account Manager etc. The deeper and broader the relationship with your client the stickier it becomes. It is true that with everything else being equal, people prefer to work with people they know, like and trust.
- Digital Presence. Go Big! Pay attention to your website. Make it easy to find information, build case studies and client testimonials and spend money on your search engine optimisation (SEO). Produce thought provoking content that you can release on social media platforms and try and connect with industry recognised experts / influencers in your field – build credibility by association.
- Leverage Client Testimonials. There is nothing more powerful than a satisfied client willing to attest to your company’s capabilities and competency.
- Hire Smart. One or two experienced and capable hires, particularly in client facing roles, will deliver more for your business than three or four average hires. It may hurt initially to pay the higher compensation, but you should get traction faster.
- Technology. Can you invest in building technology that is unique, unmatched and improves the client experience, or can an ‘off-the-shelf’ offering deliver what you need? This is where building strong relationships with your clients is important and why your hiring strategy is key. Client-facing employees are the best resource you have at your disposal to engage with clients and find out their pain points.
- Grow Revenue per client. Work quickly at securing a greater share of wallet from your clients. Can you cross-sell / upsell in the organisation and build tangential revenue streams?
- Value your employees. This is of course true for any organisation no matter the size. However, smaller companies will expect a lot from their co-workers, requiring them to regularly go the extra mile. Make sure they feel appreciated, motivated, listened to and rewarded. You treat your co-workers well; they will treat your clients well.
A strong CEO with a vision, enthusiasm and confidence in the company is a big asset. Use it! However, as you grow remember the attributes that made the company successful in the first place. Companies can over-engineer processes and systems making it more difficult to onboard clients and deliver a great experience.
It is a fine line to walk between building a structure that can efficiently support growth and creating a burdensome level of compliance that results in additional work for the client.
Final words: Try and stay agile as you grow your business!
If you are a SME thinking about your next stage of growth, we can help design strategies for you to scale, without losing your company identity!