From temporary support to systematic resource development: expert services from an SME perspective

Competition in expert services has forced the service providers to consider a more customer‐oriented strategy. Unfortunately, for many of them customers are a faceless “mass”. In order to facilitate a restructuring of the business, SME managers were asked about their needs for such services. The empirical analysis is based on the responses of 400 Finnish SMEs from various industries. The results indicate that the relationship between a firm's life cycle and the need for expert services should not be overlooked.