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A Study of High-Technology Entrepreneurial Business Start-Up factors and innovation strategies in Thailand Varit Intrama. Faculty of Accountancy and Management, Mahasarakham University
ABSTRACT
Purpose The main aim of this article is to gain the understanding of the business startup
factors and entrepreneurial strategies employed by SMEs in high technologies in Thailand.
Design/methodology/approach This research takes a qualitative approach and descriptive
statistics in exploring the relationship between start-up factors, innovation strategies and firm
performance of high-tech entrepreneurs in Thailand. Case study of 4 entrepreneurial
organizations and in-depth interview with CEOs/founders were conducted to comp
Findings The study has found that 3 out of 4 companies use imitation strategy, only 1
company uses first mover strategy. All of them use alliance strategy. All companies have
growth rate during past 3 years, the first mover company has the highest growth rate. All
entrepreneurs have high readiness of business start-up factor but their businesses grow with
different rate.
Research limitations/implications Number of samples is only 4 samples, which is limited to
provide the generalization of the entrepreneurial theory. Sample companies are all in
Information Technology cluster and may not be the good representatives of high-technology
clusters.
Practical implications This paper has the practicality for both government, educational,
SME audiences. To achieve financial targets, both start-up factors and strategies must be
appropriately selected.
Originality/value The paper has the originality in terms of its model that integrates
Timmon’s model with the entrepreneurial innovation strategy and the firm financial
performance.
Keywords Entrepreneur, Strategy, Innovation, Performance, High-technology, Information
Technology, Thailand
Paper type Case study
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INTRODUCTION
Thailand government has been pushing SME development policies by funding major SMEs,
manufacturing firm and agricultural firm to stimulate economic growth. The fact shows that
those SME development policies can not achieve economic objectives. There is less than 5
percentages of new firms can contribute to expected economic objectives. The principle of
financial management theory states the business heuristics of high risk also high return.
Agriculture industry is low-risk business and yields low return. Therefore, if Thailand
government expects high return or high growth on economics, higher risk will be involved.
High technology business possesses high risk and high return, the investigation of high
technology especially information technology (IT) SME development , strategy and
performance will be the foundation of this research, which will be beneficial to the planning
of Thailand government SME policies.
The purposes of this study are to: (i) identify the innovation strategies of high technology
firms. (ii) investigate innovation strategies of high technology firms that can be guideline for
new entries of SMEs in high technology clusters.
Research Objectives
The objectives of this research are to identify strategic type business start up factors and
performance, we conduct case studies on five Thailand’s high-technology SMEs firms and
analyze their growth histories in past 3 years. Case studies can be useful in investigating how
each firm has grown in context to the others and comparing similar strategies in different
business start up factors.
Research Question
The following questions will be researched through this research paper:
RQ01: Do entrepreneur start-up factors affect the high-tech-entrepreneur’s innovation
strategies and firm’s financial performance? How?
RQ02: Does each entrepreneurial strategy affect the financial performance of high-tech
entrepreneurs? How?
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Research Design
All of the four cases in this paper are Thailand’s high-technology SME firms that were found
by Thai people and unsupported by any Thailand government fund. All firms were
established by business opportunities and vision of founder.
All firms are mainly software-consulting and development base. Each case was developed by
face-to-face and telephonic in-depth interviews with founders. We focused on firm’s
technological strategies-start up factors relationship that effect to firm’s performance. Sale
and profit are used to represent performance.
This exploratory case study investigated technological strategies: first mover, imitation and
alliance, and business start up factors in Timmons model approach; business opportunities
resources and team. Technological strategies are measured by characteristics of their
strategies. The business start-up factors are measured by business owner attitude on
assumption that has equal degree of importance. Finally, firm’s performances are measured
by the size of total sales, average sale growth rate and return on assets (ROA) in last three
years.
Research Contribution
This research will have two contributions. First, it will provide understanding of how the
startup-factor of high technology entrepreneur affects the strategies and the firm’s
performance. Second, it will provide the selection and combination of the strategy used to
achieve the expectation of firm’s financial objectives.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND LITERATURE REVIEW
This section will describe relevant theories of this study and the conceptual framework that is
used for this research paper.
Literature Review
We will cover the literature review of Timmons model (Timmons and Spinelli, 2007),
entrepreneurial innovation strategy and performance measurement of SME firms.
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Timmons Model of New Venture Creation
Figure 1 Timmons Model for Entrepreneurial Process
Timmons model of the Entrepreneurial process is to balance 3 driving forces of Opportunity,
Resources and Team with the holistic approach in creating the new venture. Central theme is
that the highly dynamic entrepreneurial process is opportunity-driven, resource parsimonious,
led by entrepreneur and entrepreneurial team and finally must be with sustainability. The
core of the process is the “Opportunity”. Ideas of would-be entrepreneurs cannot attract
investors during the due diligence process if those would-be entrepreneurs cannot identify the
exact prospective customers and markets. Opportunity can be explained with market demand
(market share and growth potential, ability to reach the customer), market structure and size
(emerging segments or fragmented segments, proprietary barrier to entry), margin analysis
(gross margin percentage, competitive capital requirement, break even point, economic value
added). Resources include the financial resources, assets, creative people, and business plan.
Quality entrepreneurs prefer to minimize and control rather than to maximize and own. The
“Bootstrapping” is the style of entrepreneurs starting the business. They should “think cash
last” and “conserve your equity” to sustain the growth and maximize shareholder value.
Entrepreneurial team consists of entrepreneurial leader and the quality team. Entrepreneurial
leader can learn and teach their team well and fast, can is flexible and tolerates with
uncertainty. He/she should also build the entrepreneurial culture in the organization. For
the team to have entrepreneurial quality, they must possess relevant experience and track
record, obsessed with opportunity, motivated to excel , has the creativity , adaptability , locus
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of control, tolerate with risk, ambiguity and uncertainty. In addition, team member should
have courage, leadership, and good communication skills. Rewarding, sharing success and
failure among team members and stakeholders are the key attributes of entrepreneurial leader.
Entrepreneurial Innovation Strategy
Dorf and Byers (2008) argues that the entrepreneur can build an effective strategy for
innovative business in different ways. Most innovators perceive the advantage of being the
first to market. First mover can enjoy the brand recognition, the trust and relationship with
customers and suppliers, the shorter learning curve, higher skills and experience as time
passes by. However, to be the first in the market cannot guarantee the sustainability of their
businesses; new entrepreneurs must encounter the technology market, and economic
uncertainty, the industry regulation, the pressure from customers, competitors, suppliers, and
complementors. Therefore, firms may seek alternatives to first mover innovation strategy by
using the imitator strategy or alliance/partner strategy to achieve the creation of innovative
products or services to their customers. The imitator strategy help reduce the risk occurred
in investing own R&D effort and expenditure, the risk of introducing completely new
products or services to existing customers. Imitator is the replication or close copying of
existing best practices of first movers. However, the imitator strategy has its own pitfalls.
The imitation can be unsuccessful if the firms are lack of understanding in business and
technology environments. The success stories in developed countries may not be successful
in developing countries. Therefore the direct copying of ideas, products, services without
adaptation , or so-called localization, to local environment can be the deteriorate the firm
performance by not satisfying its customers, suppliers and complementors. In developing
countries like Thailand, technology transfer activities are most common in high-technology
entrepreneurs. They are not the developers of the key technologies but they are the
implementers or practitioners of those globalized technologies. For example, Microsoft and
Sun Microsystems , based in United States, are key technology developers of .NET and J2EE
technologies in IT business. SAP, based in Germany is the key technology developer in ERP
(Enterprise Resource Planning) software package like SAP. Most Thai entrepreneurs are the
implementers of these technologies. This leads to another innovation strategy of
alliance/partner strategy. A partnership or alliance is an association of two or more firms
that agree to cooperate with one another to achieve mutually compatible goals that would be
deifficult for each to accomplish alone (Spekman, 2000). New venture has its technological
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and innovative value to attract customers, suppliers, competitors, and complementors. This
creates the “Value Network”. Value network is very important to the new venture because it
helps reduce cost and time incurred in acquiring the specific resources and capabilities. (Hitt,
Ireland and Hoskisson, 2005). Firms seeks alliance/partner strategy to gain the benefits in
accessing deeper and wider to their customers, suppliers or complementors. Most Thai IT
companies has been partnering with large IT vendors e.g. IBM, Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, HP to
gain formal/classroom technical knowledge sharing, to contact the prospective customers
who are willing to be early adopters of new technologies, the benefits of lower investment on
software licensing, co-develop with those large vendors to create new hardware/software
platforms. Alliance/partner strategy will be less effective when roles and responsibilities are
unclear, or benefits are not mutual or are unfair to relevant parties.
All of the innovation strategies for entrepreneurs mentioned above can be summarized as
follows:
Definition Advantages Disadvantages Examples
First mover Being the first to
provide innovative
products/service to
current/new market
- Gain brand recognition,
trust, relationship,
knowledge, skills in
early phase
- Risk are fully bear by
firstmover
- Risk of shorter
product life cycle due
to Technological or
demand change
Apple
Imitator The close copying or
replication of the
innovation of first
mover or the
products/services
offered in current
market
- Gain the best practices
- Reduce time and effort
in R&D
- Customer switching
cost from first mover
- Lower margin
assumed due to less
differentiation
Samsung
Soken
Family
Alliance/
Partner
The association of 2 or
more firms to gain
mutual benefits and
competitive advantages
that is higher than
executing alone
- Resource and
capabilities, risk are
shared among parties in
value network
- The Clarity of Mutual
benefits, roles and
responsibilities
SonyEricsson
Avanade
Performance Measurement of SMEs
Refer to the literature review work of Reijonen and Komppula (2007), they argue based upon
the Murphy work in 1996 that the most commonly used performance measures are
efficiency : ROI (Return on Investment), growth: (increase in sales), and profit (net profit).
We rely on this financial performance measures for the period of 3 years. R&D expenditure
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over total investment are used to identify the importance of innovation in each firm (Kaplan
and Norton, 1996).
Theoretical Framework
Refer to the literature review work mentioned above; we come up with the following
conceptual model.
Figure 2 Conceptual Model
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Population
This research is based on the methodology of “case study research” (Yin, 2003). We use the
multiple case studies and explore in details according to the study objectives. We interviewed
4 technology-based firms : SinaptIQ, Tellvoice Technology Company, Boston Network
Company and MB Systems Company, which all have growth in past 3 years. All of the
surveyed companies are as follows:
Case 1: Firm S (SinaptIQ)
SinaptIQ was established in Thailand in early 2003 by 2 founders from Myanmar and
Singapore who are information technology specialists. They have long experience in IT-
consulting company and also improved management skill by got master degree of business
administration from SASIN business school, Chulalongkorn university, Thailand. They can
find and create business opportunities that a combination of experienced, meticulous software
architects and success-driven business professionals to provide innovative services around
emerging mobile technology and enterprise frameworks such as .NET and J2EE.
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Mainly SinaptIQ’s customer are the Thai banking sector and its distinctly foundation. They
satisfied SinaptIQ’s product, record of Access Control Server, Merchant Plug-In, and
Payment Gateway system implementation developed in Thailand. SinaptIQ certified by
globally recognized institutions Visa International and Master Card International, globally
recognized expertise in these areas is fully available in Thailand.
Case 2: Firm T (Tellvoice Technology Company Limited.)
Tellvoice Technology Company Limited. was established in Thailand in early 2004 by 2
electronic engineers who are member of PH.D in electronic engineering. At first time they
take opportunities from PH.D dissertation, Thai speech recognition platform, to commercial.
Products of Tellvoice Technology Company Limited was developed on core competency to
commercial products as voice applications and implements the platform to work with
interactive voice response (IVR) system.
Tellvoice Technology Company Limited does in partnership with our clients in fast changing
market segments such as: Telecommunication, IVR systems/solutions, Wire/wireless
networks, handheld devices, Information services, Public sectors, Multimedia
services/solutions etc.
Case 3: Firm B (Boston Network Company Limited)
Boston Network is the leading knowledge provider company who provides corporate training,
seminar, conference, public training, executive forum, productivity tools and assessment
services for organizations, teams and individuals. Boston Network helps companies succeed
by unleashing the power of their workforce to focus and execute on top business priorities.
We bring in latest business know-how, world-class cutting edge management knowledge, and
valuable insights to Thai society.
Case 4: Firm M (MB Systems Company Limited)
M.B. System Automation Company Limited's focus is to provide results that are
implemented quickly and efficiently. Solutions are developed in partnership with the client
by listening to their needs. We know listening to the customer and understanding their
business needs and operation is fundamental to success. We provide the following technology
based services to develop enterprise solutions: database solutions, software design,
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application programming, systems integration, network design and implementation, technical
support and training.
Instrumentation, Data Collection
Semi-structured interview guide is used to get qualitative information side of innovation of
the company as the first priority. In addition, the structured questions are used to investigate
the business information of the company (financial ratios, R&D, entrepreneur view of their
own business). The interview consists of both face-to-face and phone interviews.
We use statistical techniques of descriptive statistics to explore the relationship between each
contruct and measures.
Scale and Measurements
Likert scale of 5 is used in the research for the start-up factors survey, while the firm
performances in financial perspectives are surveyed in numerical format.
RESEARCH FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS
Research Findings
The results of the interview are described in this section. Firms’ characteristics are
summarized in Table 1:
Table 1: Summary of firms’ characteristics
Firm M Firm S Firm B Firm T
Characteristics of firms
Founding year June 1992 April 2003 August 2004 May 2004
Type of firm Limited
company
Limited
company
Limited
company
Limited
company
Registered capital (start) 1 million baht 1 million baht 1 million baht 2 million baht
CEO background Engineer IT Engineer Engineer
# of employees (start) 2 employees 2 employees 3 employees 6 employees
Major product IT service
consulting,
software &
system
development
Financial
payment
product
VOIP, ISO
27001
(Information
security)
Thai Speech
Recognition
SinaptIQ has many resources for business start up and maintain. The first investment comes
from both of founders is totally 1,000,000 Baht. For the team, also mainly by themselves.
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Tellvoice Technology Company Limited has strongly resources for business start up
especially products, own products and intellectual properties, and team who are professional
in speech recognition technology. The first investment is totally 2,000,000 Baht.
Boston Network Company Limited was established in Thailand in August 2004. The first
investment is totally 1,000,000 Baht.
MB Systems Company Limited was established in Thailand in mid-year 1992, it has a start-
ups registered capital 1,000,000 Baht.
Business start-up factor, firm’s strategies and firm’s performance are presented in Table 2:
Table 2: Summary of business start-up factors of Thailand high-technology firms.
Remark
Score 1 -2.33 means weak or poor start-up readiness
Score 2 .34-3.66 means fair or moderate start-up readiness
Score 3 .67-5.00 means strong start-up readiness
Table 3: Firms’ strategies
Firm M Firm S Firm B Firm T
Firm’s strategies
First mover strategies
(7)
- - - 5 (71.43%)
Imitation strategies
(7)
6 (85.71%) 6 (85.71%) 3 (42.86%) -
Alliance strategies (8) 4 (50.00%) 5 (62.50%) 6 (75.00%) 5 (62.50%)
Firm M Firm S Firm B Firm T
Business start up factors
Opportunity
Industry 4.25 3.75 4.25 3.50
Market 4.25 4.50 3.75 2.25
Product 4.40 2.40 3.80 2.80
Resources
Finance 3.50 2.25 3.00 3.00
Assets 5.00 1.50 5.00 5.00
Human 5.00 2.50 2.00 3.50
Strategies 2.00 2.00 3.50 4.00
Team
Management 4.20 3.40 4.80 5.00
Practice 3.00 2.91 4.36 4.91
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Remark
Score 1.00%-33.33% means weak or poor use of strategy execution
Score 33.34%-66.66% means fair or moderately use of strategy execution
Score 66.67%-100.00% means strongly use of strategy execution
Table 4: Firms’ performances
Firm M Firm S Firm B Firm T
Firm’s performances
(2007)
Sales 18 million Baht 18 million Baht 12 million Baht 10 million Baht
Net profit 3.6 million Baht 6 million Baht 4 million Baht -
ROA 34.28% - 80% -
Total investment 10.5 million
Baht
5 million Baht 5 million Baht -
R&D investment 200,000 Baht 4.5 million Baht 300,000 Baht 2 million Baht
Registered capital (now) 4 million Baht 5 million Baht 3 million Baht -
Analysis of Firm S
Under opportunity approach, industry and market factors are very attractive (3.75 and 4.50
respectively). But product factors are moderated attractive (2.40). Resources approach,
almost of resources are weakness: finance, assets and strategic (2.25, 1.50 and 2.00
respectively) except human resources (2.50). The last approach, team, both of team factors:
management and practice are fair capability (3.40 and 2.91 respectively). Firm’s strategies,
SinaptIQ strongly uses imitate strategies (85.71%) and moderately uses alliance strategies
(62.50%). Firm’s performance, sale and profit growth rate is 157 % and 71%.
Analysis of Firm T
Under opportunity approach, industry and product factors are moderated attractive (3.50 and
2.80 respectively) while market factors is poor attractive But product (2.25). Resources
approach, financial and human resources are fair (3.00 and 3.50 respectively). Both of assets
and strategic are strongly capability (5.00 and 4.00 respectively). The last approach, team,
both of team factors: management and practice are strongly capability (5.00 and 4.91
respectively).
Firm’s strategies, Tellvoice Technology Company Limited strong uses first mover strategies
(71.40%) and moderately uses alliance strategies (62.50%). Firm’s performance, sale growth
rate is 233 %.
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Analysis of Firm B
Under opportunity approach, industry market and product factors are very attractive (4.25,
3.75 and 3.80 respectively). Resources approach, financial and strategies resources are fair
(3.00 and 3.50 respectively). Resources approach, assets is strongly capability (5.00). But
human resources is weakly capability (2.00). The last approach, team, both of team factors:
management and practice are strongly capability (4.80 and 4.36 respectively).
Firm’s strategies, Boston Network Company Limited moderately uses imitate strategies
(42.86%) and strongly uses alliance strategies (75.00%). Firm’s performance, sale and profit
growth rate are 100 % and 82% respectively.
Analysis of Firm M
For opportunity approach, Firm M developed and introduced very attractive product (4.4) to
IT industry, very attractive industry (4.25) and also market (4.25).
In addition, Firm M has many strong resources; assets and human resources (5 and 5
respectively) but it weak in strategic resources (2). The last approach, team, management is
strongly capability (4.2). MB Systems strongly uses imitate strategies (85.7%) and
moderately uses alliance strategies (50%). The total sales of Firm M have grown from 15
million baht in 2005 to 18 million baht in 2007 (sales growth rate 20%) and its profit has
grown from 3 million baht in 2005 to 3.6 million baht in 2007 (growth rate 20%)
Figure 3. Summary score of Timmon’s model .
TellVoice
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Research Analysis
Figure 4 Relationship of business start-up factors and firm performance
Figure 4 shows that most of firms have high degree of business start-up readiness. But firm’s
performance does not depend on score. On the other hand, firm B has low degree of business
start-up but with higher performance than other firms that have high degree of business start-
up readiness.
Figure 5 Relationship of firm’s strategies and firm performance
Figure 5 shows that most of firms have high score of strategy execution. But firms’
performance does not depend on score, like business start-up factor. Firm S has low score of
strategies but has higher performance than firm M that has high score of strategy execution.
Business start up factors
Firm performance (Sale growth rate)
240%
160%
80%
0%
1 2.3 5 3.66
MB
Boston
SinaptIQ
Tellvoice
Firm performance (Sale growth rate)
240%
160%
80%
0%
100% 66.66% 33.33% 0%
Firm’s strategies
Tellvoice
Boston
SinaptIQ
MB
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Figure 6 Relationship of business start up factors and firm’s strategies
Figure 6 shows that most of firms have relationship between business start-up factor and
strategy execution.
Figure 7 Relationship of business start up factors, firm strategy and firm performance.
Firm strategies
Business start up Factors
1
2.3
5
3.66
66.66% 33.33% 0% 100%
Tellvoice MB
SinaptIQ
Boston
Firm performance (Sale growth rate) Firm strategies
Business start up factors
240%
160%
80%
5
3.66
2.33
33.33% 66.66%% 100%
SinaptIQ Boston
MB
Tellvoice
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Figure 7 describes relationship in 3 dimensions. This shows trend that we can improve
performance by the increase of business start up factor/readiness or strategy execution
characteristics. The coordinates: average score of business start up, average score of strategy
execution characteristics and performance of firm, are firm M (3.83, 67.86, 20), firm S (2.87,
74.11, 157), firm B (3.91, 58.93, 100) and firm T (3.83, 66.96, 233)
CONCLUSION
The main purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for high-technology SMEs firms
strategies and to analyze growth histories in past three years. We apply Timmon’s model in
business start-up factors to find relationship with strategies and to analyze firm performance
that is reflected by the strategy execution.
Business start-up factors
Under opportunity dimension, we found all of firms agree that high-technology industry is
very attractive. It shows they believe in industry expansion and they can get profit from. We
can use risk and reward profile for various investment to explain it.
In market opportunity, all of firms that use imitation strategies think it is very attractive
except firm T who use the first mover strategies. Maybe firm T thinks that to successfully
launch the product, time to entry varies from one product to another. From stage of
innovation curve, there are lots of risks to fail before early adopters accept product. On the
other hand, products of the firms which use imitation strategies proves that market
opportunity depend on the stages and time of product life cycle (PLC).
For product opportunity, 2 from 3 firms who use imitation strategies; firm M and firm B,
think their products has good features and capabilities. This is because their products are
necessary for customer and have high switching cost. Especially, firm S, which mainly
provides the products and services to the private banking customers, these types of customer
uses highly structured system and difficult to change.
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Under resources dimension, firm M and firm T have average score of strong resources while
firm B and firm S have fair and weak resources, respectively. For financial resources, no firm
has strong financial readiness.
Under team dimension, all of management team has higher score than practical team. Maybe
it has some bias from interviewees who are owners and top management. The result shows
that firm T who uses the first mover strategies has the highest score. It can explain under core
competencies theory, firm will be successful based upon specific and competent resources.
We can find a pattern of relationship between business start-up factor firm’s strategies and
firm’s performance that show in Table 5
Firm strategies
Almost firms use imitation strategies except firm T uses the first mover strategies. And all of
firms use alliance strategy but with degrees of alliance strategy in each firm are different.
Firm performance and growth
Every firm has sale growth rate in past 3 years. Firm T has the highest and firm M is the
lowest.
Table 5: Pattern of relationship between business start up factor firm’s strategies and firm’s
performance
Business start up factors Firm’s strategies Firm’s performance
Low Mid High FM IM AL Low Mid High
Total 3.83 85.71% 50% 20%
Opportunity 4.31
Resources 3.80
Fir
m M
Team 3.38
Total 2.87 85.71% 62.50% 157%
Opportunity 3.46
Resources 2.10 Fir
m S
Team 3.06
Total 3.83 42.86% 75.00% 100%
Opportunity 3.92
Resources 3.30
Fir
m B
Team 4.50
Total 3.83 71.43% 62.50% 233%
Opportunity 2.85
Resources 3.70
Fir
m T
Team 4.94
This study shows the result that all of firms have high score of business start up or high score
of strategy execution and it shows correlation that firm’s performance depends on high score
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of business start-up or strategy execution. We can use degree of business start up and
strategies to forecast firm’s performance. If the result also has closed relationship, we can
construct high degree of business factors to provide strategies for effective performance of
firm.
Figure 8 Summary business start-up factors strategies and performance of firm pattern
Recommendation and Extension to this Research
Extensions to this research are modeled in Figure 9. We can incorporate more constructs and
factors including industry factors, capability factors and more holistic performance
measurements of the SME firms according to Kaplan’s balanced scorecard framework
(1996).
Industry factors include the effects from the Porter’s five forces model(Porter,1998);
customers, suppliers, competitors, complementors (additional sixth forces to Porter’s five
forces model represents the companies in which their products or services complement the
firm to provide the total systems/solutions). Entrepreneur capability factors include
creativity, production capacity, logistic capability, marketing and service capability. Firm’s
performance can be more than financial performance includes other 3 perspectives of
balanced scorecards: customer , internal process, learning & growth; which may turn into the
performance measures such as customer satisfaction index, customer lifetime value,
operational efficiency, and learning & innovation capability index.
TellVoice
Business start up factors
Firm’s strategies L M H
L M H
L M H
L M H
L M H L M H
First mover
Imitation
Alliance
Opportunity Resource Team
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For the mediating variables, we can incorporate Porter’s generic strategies (Porter, 1998)
along with the innovation strategies. Generic strategies include cost leadership,
differentiation, and focus.
Hudson, Smart and Bourne (2001) provides the literature review of SME performance
measurement systems. They argue the critical dimensions of performance are quality, time,
flexibility, finance, customer satisfaction, and human resources. Finance measurements
include cash flow, sales, cost reduction, inventory performance. Customer measurements are
market share, competitiveness, and deliverability. Time measurements covers lead time,
process time, cycle time, delivery speed, resource utilization. Quality covers product
performance, delivery reliability. Flexibility are manufacturing flexibility, volume flexibility,
computerized controlled systems. Human resources incorporate productivity, quality of work-
life, employee involvement and relationships.
Figure 9 Extended Model of Innovation Strategies for High-technology Entrepreneurs
REFERENCES
Ansoff, I., (1988) Corporate Strategy, Penguin Book, Harmondsworth.
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