Managing SMEs: Fordway Solution Ltd Business Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Fordway Solution Ltd, an IT infrastructure company in the UK. It examines the entrepreneurial nature of the SME, its start-up processes, and sources of competitive advantage, particularly within the competitive IT industry. The report details Fordway's growth and development, challenges such as cybersecurity and technological innovation, and its current growth strategies. It also explores the government support available to overcome these challenges. Furthermore, the report offers recommendations for future growth, including financial access, skills development, market expansion, and improved customer relationships. A reflective journal highlights key learnings from the module, including the importance of SMEs in the economy, the need for innovation, and the impact of customer relationships.

Managing Small and Medium
Enterprises

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
FINDINGS.......................................................................................................................................3
The SME start – up processes......................................................................................................3
The business concept and sources of competitive advantages....................................................4
Competitive environment of SME Fordway solution ltd............................................................4
Growth and development of business till now............................................................................5
Challenges of running the IT business.........................................................................................5
Current growth and development strategy of SME.....................................................................5
Government support to overcome IT company challenges.........................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................6
REFLECTIVE JOURNAL..............................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
SME are contributing more revenue and providing more employment to the candidates as
compared to the big firms. It is identified in a research that peoples are more focusing on SMEs
because of the flexibility. Because of the small teams and departments, the people will get
opportunity of promotion easily and quickly. So, in this context, the report will cover the nature
and business process of the Fordway solution ltd. and their current growth and development.
Fordway solution ltd. is an IT infrastructure company located in UK that provide IT solutions
services to the businesses and their clients within the country (Sallem and et.al., 2017). The
company offers application and data classification, design and planning, data security services
etc. This report will cover the challenges the company is facing in their business operations and
what government support they are grabbing which help them in overcoming this issue. Further,
the report will recommend the strategy and ways with the help of which they can grow and
develop their business to the next level. The report will also discuss the sources of competitive
advantage for the IT business.

FINDINGS
Entrepreneurial nature behind venturing into SME business like Fordway Solution Ltd.
Entrepreneurship plays a very crucial role in the development of SME sector in an economy. It
the entrepreneur who undertakes to take risk to gain huge profits by satisfying those needs and
wants of the market which is yet to be satisfied (Abdullah, 2019). They are those individuals who
come up with the new and innovative products and services in the market by venturing their
ideas into a venture which can be small or medium size both. And the same is referred to as
small and medium enterprise which may become a huge market player if the idea got high
appreciation in the market. Fordway solutions has been founded for satisfying the modern
business needs of IT services to operate their business operations in highly secured and
systematic manner (Poole, 2018). So, Entrepreneur with innovative ideas generally keen to
transform their ideas into profitable venture and at initial stage it is known as SME.
The SME start – up processes
There are certain steps that involved in the process of starting up SMEs, which are as follows:
First step involves identification of opportunities of establishing a new venture, where by
exploring many sources such as newspapers, journals, magazines and trade fairs entrepreneur got
an idea about an emerging needs in the market out changing fashion and trends (Mishra, A.,
2020). Then data collection has been performed to define the concept in terms of practicality in
real world sense. Finding out related problems and their existing solutions. Evaluation of how
possible it is to combine tentative solutions that has been reached by an entrepreneur with the
existing solutions in order to modify the already existing products. Then entrepreneur undertakes
to critically evaluate the solutions in terms of its reliability, viability and validity by conducting
feasibility study. And at last the solutions are practically implemented through the establishment
of new venture that is SMEs. In this way SMEs came into existence.
The business concept and sources of competitive advantages
The business concept of Fordway solutions ltd is to provide an IT infrastructure to the modern
business where they are responsible for designing, testing and maintaining IT software for other
businesses in order to ensure that these businesses are able to deliver more value to their
customers. How the company will interact with their customers are the main purpose of the IT
solutions to the businesses. Greater data security and storage facility can be ensured by such IT
solutions companies. Certain services like business intelligence, communication management,

software services, cyber security services and cloud services are provided by Fordway solutions
ltd.
About their competitive advantage, they provide competitive edge to the players in the similar
sector by providing innovative IT solutions through developing analytical models for cloud
services and data management services. There human resource and relationship with various
stakeholders are another source of competitive advantage (Ahani, Rahim and Nilashi, 2017).
Competitive environment of SME Fordway solution ltd.
The demand of the small and medium size business is on trend because the employees
prefer them a lot due to flexible working time and great development opportunities. The
competitive environment of the Fordway solution is high because there is pure competition in the
IT industry. The reason behind it is that all the IT companies generally provide same services to
their clients. Because of no barrier to entry this market the competitors are increasing day-by-day
with their own prices of the IT services. But despite this, the expected annual growth rate of the
IT industry in UK was 6.4% in the year 2020 and indicate that it may also increases because of
covid situation and work from home (Wang, Wang and Horng, 2020).
Growth and development of business till now
Fordway solution ltd. is an IT sector company that provide various IT infrastructure
services to the customers of the UK. In the year 2020, it is considered as one of the best and
inspirational companies because of their workplace environment and attention towards their
employees. Not only that the company was also awarded by best company with a BCI of 650.9.
It is a UK based mid-size company having 30 years of experience in the same filed and provide
best and unique platform and software development services to the small and big size companies
(Santos, Mendes and Barbosa, 2021). Currently this company provide services to the local
country only and do not adopt any expansion strategy for further development. Most of the
clients of the company rely on them for the past many years and trust on their best services.
Challenges of running the IT business
The most difficult challenge that the business such as IT faces in today’s world is
cybersecurity. It is because the company need to handle the large amount of data and information
of the clients in their platforms. If any of the data is hacked by the hacker the company may lose
it clients and also its trust. Not only that the IT Company also need to change themselves as per
the environmental changes. Technology innovation is most common in today’s era and being an

IT company, the staffs of the company have to learn new technology on daily basis and make
them updated all the time. This is challengeable for the company in order to take competitive
advantage (Chatterjee and Kar, 2020).
Current growth and development strategy of SME
SME industry has lot of impact on the growth and development of the business. Nowadays
the demand of the small and medium size business is very high and become a game changer. The
50% of the SME business owners have strong confidence level in them because they provide
growth opportunity to many unemployed candidates. This companies provide proper training and
development program to their staff in order to improve their performance. Based on 2018 data,
the SMEs of the UK made 80% of the sales. The SME business owners believe that education
can’t be a barrier for them (Carson, 2019).
Government support to overcome IT company challenges
The government provide various support to the mid-size IT business by sanction them loans
and funds for their future development. In order to support SME, the government also provide
them equipment’s so that their productivity will get improve. Despite financial support, the
government of the UK also support provide advisable support also. For this they hire experts of
the particular field and arranges meeting with them for the SME entrepreneurs. Along with that
the government also guide the business with the different growing and development strategies
(Massaro and et.al., 2018).

CONCLUSION
This report is based on the SME and their importance in the today’s world. For this, the
report concludes the nature of the entrepreneurs of the SMEs and IT business. The report
concludes the start-up process of the Fordway solution ltd. along with the sources of competitive
advantage available to the medium size IT company. Further, the report concludes the current
level of demand of the IT business and the competitive environment of the SMEs in the UK. The
report also concludes the growth and development of the Fordway solutions till now and their
current position in the market. In the same context, this report also put light on the challenges the
IT business are facing in recent time. As most of the clients and customers are attracting towards
the big brand what the SME need to do in order to make their unique position in the market. Not
only that the report also concludes the current growth and development of the SME in the UK
market. After that the report concludes the measures and steps of the UK government to support
the SMEs and IT business so that they can overcome their challenges. The report also concludes
and recommend the strategy with the help of which the company can further develop to the next
level.

RECOMMENDATIONS
There are certain recommendations that can be put forward and practically applied by an
entrepreneur to ensure appreciable growth and development of their SMEs. Some of these
suggestions are as follows:
 Provision of easier access to cheaper sources of finances for expanding the operations of
the SME by reaching to new geographical regions. Sufficient and regular supply should
be ensured by the government towards the development of such a SME in order to allow
it to grow and develop and it can be done through modifying the legal framework
applicable on public grants (Ho and et.al., 2019).
 Attending entrepreneurial program and skills development can be very useful for
developing business of SMEs. If employees are being trained for learning entrepreneurial
skills, then they would be able to generate innovate ideas for solving problems and
obstacles related to growth and development.
 Providing ease to the SMEs business to expand their operations to new regions by
removing stringent rules, regulations and higher taxes and duties (Putri and Sudarma,
2020). This would encourage entrepreneurs to venture into new markets, thus allowing
for higher growth and development of SMEs which would be accordingly helpful in
economic development of the country too.
 Fordway can also improve its business and can grow and develop through undertaking
more promotional campaign by marketing their services through digital platforms like
social media and company’ websites to reach new audience of small and medium sized
businesses to whom they can extend their services.
 Fordway can grow and develop through staying and keeping up with the emerging trend
among businesses in demanding new and innovative solutions for managing their
operations (Ramasobana, 2017). Such early identification of trend would be beneficial in
solving business’s problems through offering new and modified IT solutions to the
businesses and thus helps in capturing more share in the market. Capitalizing needs
and problems of the market at an early hand always proves to be profitable for SMEs.
 Working upon customer relationship is very necessary for small businesses to make their
presence recognised in the market. They need to satisfy their customer’s need by listening
to their problems and satisfying the same through customized offerings. SMEs into IT

solutions like Fordway must work upon its efficiency and effectiveness in ensuring
higher level of customisation in their offerings.

REFLECTIVE JOURNAL
From this week’s module there are many things that I find very interesting and allow me to learn
various things about how SMEs are managed. The following points will highlight the learning
from this report:
 First of all it has been learnt that how entrepreneurial skills and nature plays a
great role in the formation of SMEs.
 Then it has been learnt that how by passing through different stages and by
following different steps entrepreneur successfully able to convert their new ideas
into small business venture.
 Sources that leads to provision of competitive edge for the small business like
Fordway solutions has been identified.
 What kind of environment is prevailing in the SMEs sector and how
entrepreneurs are capitalizing it to book higher profits.
 How SMEs sector is growing especially the company under study that is Fordway
solutions and what are the opportunities available for it in the current scenarios to
grow and develop.
 What kind of challenges that are coming in the way of entrepreneur of Fordway
solutions and how he is coping with it through strategic move.
 Then the current strategy adopted and applied by Fordway in order to grow and
develop has been evaluated to study its feasibility.
 Then the government support that has been extended towards such SMEs has
been evaluated to study the opportunity available to SMEs for growth and
development.
 Then at last valid conclusions has been drawn from the findings of the report
prepared on Fordway solutions and certain recommendations has been made for
advising on further growth and development in the future.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
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systems: the experience of Portuguese small and medium enterprises. Journal of cleaner
production, 19(17-18), pp.1965-1974.
Wang, Y. L., Wang, Y. D. and Horng, R. Y., 2020. Learning and innovation in small and
medium enterprises. Industrial Management & Data Systems.
Chatterjee, S. and Kar, A. K., 2020. Why do small and medium enterprises use social media
marketing and what is the impact: Empirical insights from India. International Journal of
Information Management. 53. p.102103.
Carson, D., 2019. Marketing for small-to-medium enterprises. In The marketing book (pp. 787-
805). Routledge.
Massaro, M. and et.al., 2018. Knowledge management in small and medium enterprises: a
structured literature review. Journal of knowledge management.
Sallem, N. R. M. and et.al., 2017. Small and medium enterprises: Critical problems and possible
solutions. International Business Management. 11(1). pp.47-52.
Ramasobana, M., 2017. Marketing communication and the performance of small and medium
enterprises in Polokwane Local Municipality. International Conference on Public
Administration and Development Alternatives (IPADA).
Putri, V. W. and Sudarma, K., 2020. Creating Model of Sustainable Performance based Green
Management System on The Small and Medium Enterprises. Management Analysis
Journal, 9(3), pp.340-349.
Ho, D. C., and et. al., 2019. Business intelligence for order fulfilment management in small and
medium enterprises. International Journal of Internet Manufacturing and Services, 6(2),
pp.169-184.
Ahani, A., Rahim, N. Z. A. and Nilashi, M., 2017, July. Firm performance through social
customer relationship management: Evidence from small and medium enterprises.
In 2017 International Conference on Research and Innovation in Information Systems
(ICRIIS) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
Mishra, A., 2020. Workplace Bargaining in Small & Medium Enterprises in India: Trends &
Practices. vvuqla/kku, p.49.

Abdullah, M. A., 2019. Small and medium enterprises in Malaysia: Policy issues and challenges.
Routledge.

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