Typically we see large multinationals and corporates throughout Marketing text books and study guides, but is size all it’s cracked up to be?

With the downfall and demise of many of the world’s most well established institutions, banks and motor manufacturers it appears that good marketing and business strategy isn’t necessarily prevalent in such large organisations. So where can we look for best practice?

Perhaps the answer lies in SME world? Many small and medium sized businesses move along quite happily without formal and traditional marketing and business plans, so why is it that especially in a tough financial climate, they are able to withstand external pressures and continue to grow, develop and see profits. The answer may be twofold. Firstly cash. Cash is the staple diet of small business. Without cash a small business is unable to pay its suppliers. Cash is invariably the one thing on the mind of managers and owners of small businesses, all day and all night. Despite what they do on a day to day basis in terms of operations, sales, production, support, cash is the over riding element that controls and defines the scale of development or cutback. Without cash a small business has no life blood. It focused the mind, and where there is a marketing or business strategy in place, it focuses that too. Has cash been seen as so important in a large organisation? Probably not. Secondly customer service. Small businesses are sometimes more able to sustain more intimate customer relations because of their size and personal engagement of managers with key decision makers. Being small has advantages of being fleet of foot and the potential to adapt to fast changes in market dynamics. So why does Marketing invariably focus on the large corporates when often best practice can be found in the smaller fish in the sea? The answer might be convenience and familiarity but the benefit of asking around your contacts in small business to glean great examples of where marketing and business has worked and beaten the credit crisis, could be better than relying on the case studies in the marketing books about the corporate giants who aren't quite as good as everyone once thought! Do you have any good small to medium sized business examples?