Future Trends and New Zealand’s SMEs

Abstract

New Zealand’s SMEs face increased challenges as we move into the second decade of the 21st Century. Increased challenges will arise from future changes in technological, demographic and socio-economic trends. The lecture aims to examine the nature and characteristics of New Zealand’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the context of future trends. The lecture will examine the significance of these major future trends for New Zealand’s SMEs in the light of characteristics of SMEs utilising panel data on New Zealand’s SMEs held by the New Zealand Centre for SME Research (NZSMERC) The Centre has conducted an annual survey of 1500 New Zealand SMEs since 2007, the BusinesSMEasure. This has enabled the development of a panel data set held by the Centre, each year around 1500 SMEs have responded to this annual survey. The lecture will examine the extent to which New Zealand’s SMEs:• Are prepared to participate and invest in building management capabilities and management development activities.• Are responsive and adaptable to changing economic conditions, such as the recent recession.• Undertake innovation and innovative activities.• Achieve growth in changing and turbulent economic conditions.Implications for the future of New Zealand’s SMEs will be considered and some implications for policy and relevance of recent policy measures, particularly with regard to innovation and R&D levels in SMEs will be discussed. The analysis presented in the lecture will be based upon existing concepts, theories and evidence for forecasting the pace of change over the next decade. The lecture will discuss changes in conceptual and consequential terms to make forecasts of changing behaviours, changes in infrastructure networks and to identify the consequences for SMEs and discuss some policy implications.