Small Businesses In The Aftermath Of The Crisis

This book seeks to analyze how small and medium businesses react to the economic and financial crisis. Its focus is on the activities and strategies of SMEs in the areas of innovation, R&D investment, labor markets and finance. The book takes an international perspective and includes both comparative and national analyses and policies, with authors representing acdemia and international institutions such as the ECB, OECD, Kauffman Foundation, Federal Reserve, and US Small Business Administration.

This book provides an in-depth introduction to crisis management and leadership in SMEs, as well as methods, approaches and cases against the background of different crises; external ones in particular. Featuring contributions from research and practice, this book covers a plethora of SMEs from different sectors to match the diverse nature of small business practice. The combination of a sound theoretical framework for small firm crisis management along with practical instruments/methods and cases, help to improve the organizational resilience of SMEs. The authors also guide the reader to resources beyond the book, including an online “Crisis Toolkit” comprised of material such as further publications, crisis management blueprints, guidelines, checklists, and company cases on crisis management-related issues.

Small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy. They are the biggest job creators and offer a path to the American Dream. But for many, it is difficult to get the capital they need to operate and succeed. In the Great Recession, access to capital for small businesses froze, and in the aftermath, many community banks shuttered their doors and other lenders that had weathered the storm turned to more profitable avenues. For years after the financial crisis, the outlook for many small businesses was bleak. But then a new dawn of financial technology, or “fintech,” emerged. Beginning in 2010, new fintech entrepreneurs recognized the gaps in the small business lending market and revolutionized the customer experience for small business owners. Instead of Xeroxing a pile of paperwork and waiting weeks for an answer, small businesses filled out applications online and heard back within hours, sometimes even minutes. Banks scrambled to catch up. Technology companies like Amazon, PayPal, and Square entered the market, and new possibilities for even more transformative products and services began to appear. In Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream, former U.S. Small Business Administrator and Senior Fellow at Harvard Business School, Karen G. Mills, focuses on the needs of small businesses for capital and how technology will transform the small business lending market. This is a market that has been plagued by frictions: it is hard for a lender to figure out which small businesses are creditworthy, and borrowers often don’t know how much money or what kind of loan they need. New streams of data have the power to illuminate the opaque nature of a small business’s finances, making it easier for them to weather bumpy cash flows and providing more transparency to potential lenders. Mills charts how fintech has changed and will continue to change small business lending, and how financial innovation and wise regulation can restore a path to the American Dream. An ambitious book grappling with the broad significance of small business to the economy, the historical role of credit markets, the dynamics of innovation cycles, and the policy implications for regulation, Fintech, Small Business & the American Dream is relevant to bankers, fintech investors, and regulators; in fact, to anyone who is interested in the future of small business in America.

At some point, every small business will face a crisis. When that crisis comes, will you freeze - or flourish? Global pandemics. Raging bushfires. The death of a loved one. Severe floods. Stock market crashes. Sudden illness. It seems that we no sooner get through one crisis when we're faced with another. That is exactly what does happen, and Australian businesses will continue to be buffeted by such crises. Whether personal or international, a crisis can have devastating consequences for a small business. Small Company, Big Crisis is a timely, practical guide to preparing for, surviving, and coming out the other side of a crisis - with your business and sanity intact. With more than 25 years' experience as a small business owner, Bronwyn Reid has been through plenty of the economic booms and busts, natural disasters, and personal crises that can derail a small business. In this book, she shares the vital lessons she has learned along the way and outlines the actions you can take to ensure your business weathers any storm. - Explore the history of boom and bust - Learn the 7 questions you must ask yourself to build resilient businesses - Understand the 10 steps of dealing with a crisis - without freezing - Discover the opportunities that develop from a crisis, and how to seize them - Investigate the ways we can all do business better in the future Whether you've already experienced a business crisis, or whether you're looking to future-proof your venture, Small Company, Big Crisis will help you confront the inevitable, protect your business (and yourself), and grow stronger as a result.

This book gives us a holistic description of all paragons involved in small business operations during crisis years and suggests the necessary steps that need to be taken to help them overcome their problems.The author clearly demonstrates the crisis implications to small businesses by using personal research and real-life examples in addition to a big bibliography from renowned academics. The book contains useful and practical information for small business owners, entrepreneurs from all industries, business students, academics and strategists, business coaches and can be used as a road map during turbulent periods for small business in all industries. The author covers the topic from different approaches, while he tries to have a bird's-eye view of contemporary trends and new approaches. Several concepts like risk management, blue ocean strategy, and turnaround management have been discussed by the author in order to create a crystal clear understanding of why there is no such thing as dead end for small businesses even under the worst possible situations and how they can achieve their sustainable development and grow. This book was inspired by the significant problems that small and medium enterprises faced during the last huge global financial crisis.

Few small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) scale up, but these few fast growing firms are the major driver of new jobs added to OECD economies. This report helps policy makers get a grip on growth of those few SMEs by considering the transformation they undergo before, during and after their high-growth phase.