[fusion_text]The world loves winners.
Whether it is successful athletes, politicians, or business people who outperform the pack, there is a continuous longing to study successful people and to learn from them so that we too may improve ourselves.
This mechanism is embedded in human nature but also goes for businesses and organisations in general.
In the past, researchers and practitioners alike havestrived to identify the outstanding practices, also known as “best practices”, and optimised processes of successful companies to learn from them and use them to improve their status quo. This is a good thing, as learning from best-practice cases is an effective means of understanding the principles and specifics of good ways of doing business.
However, in the literature, there is a tendency to study only large international corporations like Apple, Google, Amazon, and Proctor & Gamble, even though small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) constitute the dominant form of business organisations in all countries worldwide. SMEs represent between 95%
and 99% of the enterprise population depending on the industry and state (Deakins & Freel, 2009). However, for an SME, it can be hard to learn from these multinational billion-dollar businesses, as the SMEs typically are constrained by scarce resources in ways that larger corporations are not (Knight, 2000; Chesbrough, 2007).
There are countless examples of SMEs that clearly outperform their competitors and deliver exceptional financial results via outstanding practices, in many cases to much higher degrees than their esteemed global counterparts.
When the spotlight falls on SMEs, we rarely see successful companies characterised as having unique patents, intellectual property, specifically nuanced strategies,or above-normal capitalisation rates. Hence, we speculated that there must be a set of alternative explanations and recipes for the apparent success of such SMEs and – literally – how they kick ass.
The objective of this paper is to highlight what can be learned from the best SMEs and how we might apply their mechanisms of excellence as best-practice examples.
Our point is that a model of the critical elements and relationships that create a Kickass Company – based on SME data will – in the long run, comprise the most
valid model for other SMEs looking at improving their performance.
In our search for excellent-performing SMEs, it became evident that traditional strategy tools and mindsets like five forces (Porter, 1980), SWOT, or PESTEL analysis were incapable of explaining the dimension of exceptionality.
In the search for a stronger theoretical standpoint,we were inspired by a series of management theories relating to corporate culture (Logan et al., 2008;
Collins, 2001). We were also influenced by the notion of Kickass Companies: Leveraging business models with great leadership business models and the practical tools related to this movement (Osterwalder & Pigneur, 2010; Osterwalder et. al, 2014).
The power of business models lies in their ability to visualise and clarify how firms may configure their value creation processes. Among the key aspects of businessmodel thinking are a focus on what the customer values, how this value is best delivered to the customer, and how strategic partners are leveraged in this valuecreation, delivery, and realisation exercise. Central to the mainstream understanding of business models is the value proposition towards the customer, and the hypothesis generated is that, if the firm delivers to the customer what he/she requires, then there is a good foundation for extensive customer loyality and a longterm profitable business.
Hence, the objective here is to study the intersection between business models, corporate culture, leadership, execution, and the ability to deliver continuously outstanding financial results. In other words, we want to determine how to leverage business models through great leadership – and ultimately create significant financial results from this. Our review of the aforementioned literature led to the statement of the following hypotheses from which an empirical study could depart:
1. The organisation and configuration of a company depend upon how competitive their primary market is.
2. Companies’ ability to create relationships with customers and partners and to utilise these relationships are important factors in optimising the business model, as these relationships help to create lock-in and higher knowledge flows to and from these partners.
3. Clear communication from the management about the company’s objectives, a strong focus on employee well-being, and a “we-culture” create a healthy environment and thus better business results.
4. Companies that are propelled by a determination to become world champions perform better than average.
5. An open and decentralised leadership approach is necessary for employee satisfaction and ultimately influences the company’s performance.
6. Hiring personnel from matching value sets creates the best team in the long run and therefore also the best results.
7. How companies choose to compete and configure their business model will have an impact on the company’s performance.
8. A strong customer focus is essential for good longterm performance, and a focus on helping customers create value contributes to maintaining the company’s source of business.
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