Small businesses and the changing competitive environment

This chapter offers critical insight into the issue of strategic change in today's fast-paced global competitive environment. It focusses on contemporary drivers of change and considers their implications for small businesses. The small business challenge relating to capacity to identify, react or respond to unfolding changes is of central concern in this chapter. Market reaction to key change forces is also examined. Attention is afforded to the significance and nature of long-term planning for small businesses in their plight to remain competitive in today's highly competitive environment - both at a small business planning and government planning level. We give focus to how both the unfolding Covid-19 era and other parallel emerging external change forces pose major challenges for small businesses. Small businesses are the backbone of local communities and a vibrant source of innovation and competition and an essential source of employment. Building and maintaining trust and a transparent work environment between business partners and the public will become critical. On the other hand, compliance with governance and sustainability standards will be a major objective. Thus, in an effort to understand how to most effectively manage and support small enterprises, this chapter draws upon and integrates key dimensions of small business development understanding and complementary literature-based insight to explore key dimensions of the changing external change environment within which small businesses must strive to operate.