Our friends over at SmartCompany have celebrated their annual Smart50 awards, recognising another batch of fast-growth SMEs.
It’s well worth poring over the profiles of the companies on the list – I bet you can extract a tip from every one if you look hard enough.
You’ll also see plenty of names from the StartupSmart awards – it’s great to see these guys graduating to the next level.
Having studied the list and knowing some of the companies involved, I want to highlight a key lesson I have picked up.
To my eye the thing that separates this emerging breed of companies from established players is their nimbleness.
They are dealing with a range of problems from patchy economic conditions through to constant technological changes.
That is enough to make some entrepreneurs cautious but these guys have taken a different approach.
They are still chasing growth but they are building in the flexibility to react to the changing environment – scale down, scale up, bring forward, delay.
Being able to thrive with flexibility is a huge competitive advantage. Can your business match it?
Get it done – today!