SME Insight brings you an issue loaded with flower power! With the theme “Women at the Helm: Building Businesses with Style,” featured firms include the Network for Enterprising Women, Prestige Labels Company, First Option Dental Clinic, and a feature on celebpreneur, Amanda Griffin. Plus, we have a one-on-one with Contempo Inc.’s Nix Arroyo and her […]

If you’re on top of your business, then sooner or later you will have to figure out what’s happening in the world around you. After all, fresh information is typically the way to identify opportunities that can be availed of.
In large organizations, this is what’s called environmental scanning, and it typically involves having the corporate […]

Small companies, especially micro ones, are characterized by having owners who tend to do everything themselves. Hands on, details-oriented, action-oriented — these are the marks of a good business CEO.
But as the company grows, things have to change by necessity. The most obvious change is that as demand for the company’s product increases, the need […]

Based on observations and case studies of CEOs, there seem to be two kinds of entrepreneurs, if we can classify them according to how they utilize resources.
On one hand are the visionaries. These folks have grand, ambitious goals. They typically have a very strong idea of what they want to accomplish. And they generally find […]

Sometimes the choice of what business to put up depends on what resources you have in the first place.
For many entrepreneurs, this translates to location. After all, getting a perfect location for your ultimate business idea is next to impossible. So why not go the other way and first look for an available location… and […]

I had John Lu Koa of The French Baker as the speaker in my strategy class this morning. We talked about his being the CEO, and of his firm’s origins and strategies. He carries his company’s positioning statement in his Treo smartphone (and it’s a long positioning statement!).
John Lu told my students about how, once […]

One of the things I love about getting to meet CEOs of successful SMEs is that a surprising number of them built their businesses out of a sincere desire to help others.
For instance, Joanna Duarte of Big & Small stating that she built her business to help give jobs for “her girls” (see our November-December […]