SUSTAINABLE STRATEGIES FOR SMALL COMPANIES COMPETING AGAINST MULTINATIONAL GIANTS

Some small firms compete in markets against major multi-national firms and face the daunting challenge of having to develop sustainable strategies for building and maintaining relative competitiveness against much bigger firms. Such firms do not enjoy the benefits that size brings ‐ they are Davids taking on Goliaths, and we have styled them “micro-giants”. Through a process of detailed case studies of actual micro-giants, analysis of asset structure, and experiments with a simulation model, the relationships between key assets, critical success factors, and competiveness are explored. The model developed produces six scenarios reflecting different strategies for developing tangible and intangible assets and, critically, maintaining balance between them. A level of aggression in asset building is needed, but the simulations show that this can all be undone if balanced development is not maintained. This confirms there are pathways by which micro-giants can remain competitive and deny multinationals the overwhelming victory that the received wisdom suggests.

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