Small family-based manufacturers posses great production know-how but often fail in setting up a global business strategy that will guarantee company’s success on each day fiercer competitive global market. In an innovative model of intercompany collaboration we capacitate small businesses to be able to grow their business in a sustainable way. A case-study of a family-owned meat transformation company will be presented and the results achieved in 2 years work with the company.
2. FAMILY BUSINESS STATS
60-90% of nongovernmental
GDP
Family
businesses are
70-95% of all
business entities
85% of all
business startups started with
family money
50-80%of all
private sector
jobs
Source: European Family Business – Family business statistics
3. THE UNIQUE QUALITIES OF
THE FAMILY BUSINESS
- Long-term thinking and a broader perspective.
- Quicker and more flexible decision-making.
- An entrepreneurial mind-set.
- A greater commitment to jobs and the community.
- A more personal approach to business based on trust.
- More profitable over the long term.
- Less likely to lay people off and more likely to hire.
- Use less debt and are therefore more stable. Particularly in economic
times such as the ones we are in now.
4. PORTUGAL TODAY AND
FAMILY-OWNED SMES
CHALLANGES
- Globalisation causing highly competitive economic environment.
- World economic crisis and consumption decline in Portugal and in
Europe in general.
- IMF in Portugal since 2011 – trust level in Portugal drops – credit
access difficulties.
Portuguese family-owned SMEs are obliged to rethink their strategies,
value propositions and target markets. Buzz words internationalisation
and innovation start to appear on a daily basis.
5. At the time present due to internal market contraction and globalization
turning internal market more competitive these companies have a need
to internationalize and innovate.
In order not to waste its scarce resources a need of defining a
company’s internationalization and innovation strategy and action plan
is crucial.
8. RELATIONSHIPS AS RESOURCES
Creation of a new business relationship is seen as a form of
organizational change and innovation (Huang and Wilkinson, 2007)
bringing an important competitive advantage to the companies since
they do not compete only at the level of price, but also in speed of
delivery, quality and innovation (Humphrey and Schmitz, 1998).
Relationships offer unique access to external resources of their
partners’ and can be seen as valuable resources themselves. Companies
co-evolve in the relationships (Huang and Wilkinson, 2007).
10. TRUST AND RELATIONSHIPS
Trust is a key mechanism of inter-firm relationships enabling
interaction and reducing transaction costs. A recent work review
performed by Ekici (2013) demonstrates trust has been largely viewed
as a construct that increases commitment, satisfaction, cooperation,
performance, signals long-term orientation and propensity to stay in
the relationship.
11. TRUST AND RELATIONSHIPS
RISK
UNCERTAINTY
Starting a new business relationships family-owned SMEs need to
be aware of their key resources and capabilities in order to be able
to present their unique value proposition and generate fair
incomes.
12. RELATIONSHIPS AS A SOURCE
OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Myers and Cheung (2008): Companies learn one from another. Types of
relationship learning within the buyer–supplier relationship:
- information sharing,
- joint sense making, and
- knowledge integration.
All three contribute to a company’s unique sales proposition based on
competitive
advantage
achieved
relationships with its key partners.
through
its
involvement
in
17. THE PLAN IS TO…
Co-work and co-evolve the company’s competences – resource fusion
7. Think things
through together
1. Verbalize the
core strategic
premises
2. Define the target
markets for
internationalization
6. Adjust the marketing
materials
5. Define the target
partners and influencers
4. Marketing
plan
3. Study the
target markets
19. THE EXECUTION
-International food and beverage fair SISAB, February 2012
-Gourmet fair Peixe Lisboa, June 2012
-Portugal Gourmet, November 2012
-International food and beverage fair SISAB, February 2013
-Polagra food fair, Poland, September 2013
-Macau international fair, Macau, China, October 2013
-HORECA life, Belgium, October 2013
20. DEVELOPING BUSINESS
RESULTS IN…
Company gaining recognition of its innovation
capacity between its peers.
Qualification for The innovative product of the year
2012 at Masters of distribution.
More contacts and visits of potential clients at the
company.
Qualified leads:
October 2012 – Mozambique, Switzerland, Germany,
Russia, Brasil, China, France, Luxemburg, Romenia,
Spain, Angola, UK, Chech Rep., Macau
October 2013 – China, Angola, Germany, Poland,
France, Luxemburg, Belgium, Switzerland, Angola,
Mozambique
21. DEVELOPING
BUSINESS RESULTS
IN…
Actual sales
2013* (till October)
347.870€
88.311€
2012
401.827€
France, Luxemburg,
Belgium, Switzerland,
Angola, Mozambique
2011
431,382.42 €
36.300€
France, Luxemburg,
Romenia, Spain, Angola,
UK, Chech Rep., Macau
22. CHALLANGES
-Long and costly processes of obtaining the certificates to be able to
sell in Brazil and in Russia.
-Consolidating the markets we have already entered.
-Support the distributors to do a great job in brand consolidation.
-Make the right balance between market prospection costs and limited
resources available.
-Close up the 2014 international promotion plan.
-Continue optimizing internal processes in order to be able to serve the
international market and evolve the company.
23. Co-evolve by building relationships based on trust!
Brigita Jurisic
bj@bridge-partner.pt
www.bridge-partner.pt
brigita@tecminho.uminho.pt
www.tecminho.uminho.pt
Notes de l'éditeur
According to the best available research, the importance of family business has been equated to: In Europe – over 1 trillion EUR in aggregated turnover, 9% of the EU’s GDP and more than 5 million jobs
The SMEs possess limited resources therefore their internationalization paths are substantially different from the ones of big companies (Gabrielsson and ManekKirpalani, 2004). Then need to be innovative to be able to guarantee results with less resources.Which resources are the most hard to get for SMEs?
Can SMEs hit the road alone?
1ST ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
Starting a new business relationship is an uncertain situation for both companies entering into the relationship and represents great risks and costs for both, especially if it is in the international level and demands closer cooperation between the companies (Brennan et al., 2011). SMEs establishing contacts with potential partners abroad have a difficult task in gaining trust, especially if their experience with foreign markets is scarce and they lack of international references.
2ND ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE – COMPANY GOES INTERNATIONAL
As origens da Quinta dos Fumeiros remontam aos tempos em que os antepassados da Sra. Rego se instalaram no Norte de Portugal e começaram a curar e a fumar carne para garantir a sua preservação. Em 1988, as suas três filhas decidiram então desenvolver um negócio com base nas receitas da sua mãe e na vasta experiencia em curar e fumar carne. Inicialmente os produtos tradicionais produzidos eram vendidos apenas em mercados locais mas, com o aumento da procura, procedeu-se em 2007 a um investimento em novas instalações produtivas e numa nova forma de organização de trabalho.