STRATEGY FORMULATION IN SMALL ENTERPRISES: A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH

A simple but effective approach to the analysis of market opportunities is outlined. It is argued that for small enterprises the link between business development and management development is clear and direct: the consequence being that useful techniques have to be explored and discovered in a partnership with managers, not prescribed on the basis of what other larger firms might do. A process is described that has been tested with the managers of numerous small enterprises as they struggled to come to terms with the implications for their business of the liberalisation of the European market in 1992.