Managing Small and Medium Enterprises: Contemporary Issues and Growth Strategies

This report discusses the nature of entrepreneurs, SME start-up processes, business concepts, competitive advantages, growth and development strategies, challenges, and government support measures for managing small and medium enterprises. It also highlights the case of Kiss the Hippo Coffee, a London-based food and beverage organization. The report emphasizes the importance of innovation, effective strategy, and suitable sources of information to survive in a highly competitive market. Subject: Business Management. Course Code: N/A. Course Name: N/A. College/University: N/A.

Managing small and
medium enterprises

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................1
The nature of the entrepreneur behind the venture......................................................................1
The SME start up processes.........................................................................................................2
The business concept and sources of competitive advantages.....................................................2
The current level of demand and the competitive environment .................................................2
Any government support measures that may be available to help the business overcome the
challenges faced...........................................................................................................................4
The extent to which, if any, the business has considered social or sustainability goals and
whether there is opportunity here for the business......................................................................4
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Small and medium enterprises is managed by a individual and group of individuals in
order to earn profit and their livlihood. Its is operated at large scale with small amount of capital
to provide products and services at local market and fulfil the needs of local people (Blair and
Hitchens, 2018). Generally there is less than 100 employees which works as per their
specialisation. To define the cocept of managing small and medium enterprise the selected
organisation is Kiss the Hippo Coffee which is located in London. It was established in 2017 and
have around fifty staff member. It provides food and breverage service to people to meet their
objectives such as earning profit.
This report highlights contemporary issues relating to SMEs and government support
available to help businesses address these issues. As well as ability to identify and evaluate
development routes for an SME. Further, it covers Evidences of appraising alternative methods
of growth in SMEs and evidences of investigation and evaluation of sources of finance in SMEs.
At last, it defines a proof of designing a growth policy for an SME addition to understanding
about how to manage change issues in an SME.
MAIN BODY
The nature of the entrepreneur behind the venture
Kiss the Hippo Coffee is food and brevarage organisation, the nature of entrepreneur is to
bring innovation and new service in the market. The main nature of owner behind to launch this
firm in the market of London is to provide variety of coffee to the people. As they give more
focus to garb new opportunities, new commodities, new techniques and new product or services
which helps them to achieve their desired goals. The vision of company is to provide best and
unique flavoured coffee to enhance the experience of customers and gain poularity. The nature of
enterprisers of Kiss the Hippo Coffee is offer innovative items and services to set new trends and
arttact large number of public (Cantonnet, Aldasoro and Iradi, 2019). They operate their business
at small scale and have minimum employees which takes orders form customers and dilivers
them customised products to meet their expectations.

The SME start up processes
The Start up process of Kiss the Hippo Coffee includes various activities in their
innovation process such as technical feasibility, finanacial feasibility as well as assessment of
personal requirements adition to organisational capabilities. For technical feasibility,
entrepreneur of Kiss the Hippo Coffee can conduct market testing, market fesiability by
conducting deep resreach to set target segemnt in order to provide their food and breverages
services. They can use STP model to target their customers in local market and offer them unique
flavoured coffee to add value and increase their experinece. As they decided to target youth and
people who try something new to increase their profiatbilty and customer base. Further they
conduct finanacial feasiability to determine budget and invest funds in their enterprise to manage
and run its business operation effectively. It helps them to determine costs, finanacial resources
as well as cash flow analysis for the growth and operate business successfully (Crovini, 2019).
The business concept and sources of competitive advantages
Kiss the Hippo Coffee is new business concept which the entrepreneur start to provide
unique and flavoured coffee to people ort targeted customers in order to gain competitive
advantage. There are various source of competitive advantage such as better quality of services,
skilled staff member, research and development and effective marketing channels. As
management of Kiss the Hippo Coffee can get competitive advantages by implemeting new or
digital technology in their marketing functions which helps to atrract large number of youth and
retain them for long run. Also by recuriting skilled staff which worked with proper manner by
mainating hygine while serving food to client and attained them gentally it assists Kiss the Hippo
Coffee to gain competitive adavantages. By making effective price strategy and provide their
service at reasonable price with unique methods they can win competitive edge over competitors
and increase their profitabilty or brand value (Kim and Shim, 2018).

The current level of demand and the competitive environment
The demand of food and breverages services in the market is high as people are
demanded more unique and innovative concept to meet their social needs. Also in todays social
media and dynamic world people are more attracted and take interest in fast food, coffees and
other food items to enhance their experience. There is huge trends about food and breverages in
the market of UK which create opportunities and many entrepreneur to start their new startup in
this industry. After globalisation, number of tourist is increased and people like to explore new
thing which increases demand and competition for innovation. So the entrepreneur of kiss the
Hippo coffee must evaluate the current competitive environment and demand level in food and
breverages industry in order to achieve sustainable growth (Kumar, Singh and Kumar, 2021).

The growth and development of the business to date
Growth in the business is very much important for the long term working of the business.
As it derives new assets, attract new talent and make investment in the funds. It contributes in
enhancing the business performance and profits. Growth and the development in the business is
very important as it generates the new opportunities that provides different ways for success with
that it expands the range of the products and services , attract more customers in the business ,
make increment in the sales and overall expands the size of the business. Growth in the business
helps business to respond to the market demands and increases the market share. In the context of
Kiss the hippo coffee company, they are making development in the business by introducing
new range of coffee as per the customer demands and make business operations more digital as
per the current technology. They are working with more cleanliness in their working operations
to make sure that the they provide services that are more safe for the customers as per the
situations that are faced by many organisations (Mejri, MacVaugh and Tsagdis, 2018).
The challenges of managing and running the business
In the current scenario, it has been analysed that working with the constant changes in the
business environment brings many challenges such as the major challenge is keeping up the
business with the changing market and the customer expectations. There are the issues in the
business in generating the proper work from the workforce of the particular organisation as
training of the employees with the constant change in the environment is being difficult for the
business. It costs so much for the management. And the most challenging aspects in the business
are hiring the staff that are capable of working as per the current technology upgradation with
keeping al the safety measures in the organisation. In the context of Kiss the hippo coffee
company, currently they are facing many challenges in the running of the business such as
providing food that is healthy for the public as people are driving more towards the healthy
intake with that there are also the problem of safety as post pandemic customers want more
hygiene in the organisation and hygiene in both the food they serve and the environment they are
providing to their customers with the more digitally updated (Seth, Rehman and Shrivastava,
2018).
The SMEs current growth and development strategy

The growth I the business is very much important and if it is Small medium enterprise
then the growth becomes more essential aspects of doing business. The current growth definition
in the Small medium enterprise includes the well establishment of the organisation. The growth
also depends on the availability of the resources that is need on the organisation. For the Small
and medium Enterprise it is very essential to sustain in the market of the business and for that the
growth and the promotion strategy of the business should be very much strong. Their strategy
includes the making local products more strong in the international market. In the context of the
Kiss the hippo coffee company, their strategy includes more use of products that are less
impacting in the environment and the enhances the sustainable driven goods in the company.
They are making partnership with the companies that are working towards the development of
the environment. With that company development strategy also includes introduction of the
products that are based on the customer choices and provides more variety to the customer
(Shrafat, 2018).
Any government support measures that may be available to help the business overcome the
challenges faced.
There are various ways in which government are providing support to the business to
overcome the issues that they ate facing in their working such as government are providing loans
to the businesses with the zero interest rates, government are access to the small and medium
enterprises in financing tools to boost investment, there are many employment support scheme
that runs by the government to make their working easier, Government also helps in making
promotion events as per the customer demands, promotion of the cooperation between private
sector and the researchers and making reduction on the regulatory burden on the entrepreneurs. In
the context of Kiss the hippo coffee company, they are not enjoying much of the supporting
measures from the government but they are getting advantages some of the government schemes
that are some concessions in the regulatory measures of the company and sone support in the
working of the company as the company is Small and medium enterprise and there are some
policies if the government that work in order to promote the Small and medium enterprise in the
country (Tuffour, Amoako and Amartey, 2020).

The extent to which, if any, the business has considered social or sustainability goals and whether
there is opportunity here for the business
Sustainable goals in the business are defines as the goals that are set to make reduction in
the pollution, preservation of the resources, reduction in the waste generation in the land fills
reduction in the discharge of the carbon footprint and recycling advocacy in innovation. Social
and the sustainable goals in the business are very much important for the generation of the profit
as well as as protecting the environment, it provides the many other ways to run the business with
its effectivity and efficiency. In the context of Kiss the hippo coffee company, they are also
working to minimizes the carbon footprint in the environment and working towards more social
driven goals that that support many social causes in the country they are working as per their
profitability. The company is working with the aim of development of the environment measures
and make its working capable of handling tasks effectively with the less wastage of the resources
(Wiesner, Chadee and Best, 2018).
CONCLUSION
As per above presented information, it has been concluded that managing small and
medium enterprises, entrepreneur require to bring innovative busines idea which atrract large
number of customers. As they have to make effective strategy and use most suitable sources to
get full information about current market conditions to offer best product and services for the
achievement of goals effectively. Nowadays, there is huge competition in market due to the
increase in deamand of customers for which entrepreneur must collect all valuable sources which
enable them to survive. The entripriser faced various challenges regarding finanace, competition,
management of human resource and change in environment of laws. For this they have to make
effective development strategy which foster their performance, growth and profitability.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Blair, D.M. and Hitchens, D.M., 2018. Campus companies-UK and Ireland. Routledge.
Cantonnet, M.L., Aldasoro, J.C. and Iradi, J., 2019. New and emerging risks management in
small and medium-sized enterprises. Safety science. 113. pp.257-263.
Crovini, C., 2019. Risk management in small and medium enterprises. Routledge.
Kim, N. and Shim, C., 2018. Social capital, knowledge sharing and innovation of small-and
medium-sized enterprises in a tourism cluster. International journal of contemporary
hospitality management.
Kumar, P., Singh, R.K. and Kumar, V., 2021. Managing supply chains for sustainable operations
in the era of industry 4.0 and circular economy: Analysis of barriers. Resources,
Conservation and Recycling. 164. p.105215.
Mejri, K., MacVaugh, J.A. and Tsagdis, D., 2018. Knowledge configurations of small and
medium-sized knowledge-intensive firms in a developing economy: A knowledge-based
view of business-to-business internationalization. Industrial marketing management. 71.
pp.160-170.
Seth, D., Rehman, M.A.A. and Shrivastava, R.L., 2018. Green manufacturing drivers and their
relationships for small and medium (SME) and large industries. Journal of Cleaner
Production. 198. pp.1381-1405.
Shrafat, F.D., 2018. Examining the factors influencing knowledge management system (KMS)
adoption in small and medium enterprises SMEs. Business Process Management Journal.
Tuffour, J.K., Amoako, A.A. and Amartey, E.O., 2020. Assessing the effect of financial literacy
among managers on the performance of small-scale enterprises. Global Business Review,
p.0972150919899753.
Wiesner, R., Chadee, D. and Best, P., 2018. Managing change toward environmental
sustainability: A conceptual model in small and medium enterprises. Organization &
Environment. 31(2). pp.152-177.