Economic proposal Research Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Economic - Research Proposal Example However, factors affecting SMEs are yet to gain much attention as in most cases big companies have been subject of research (Ghosh and Kwan, 1996; Kauranen, 1996 and Pelham, 2000). The Unlike large companies which have advantages of scope, scale, resources, and opportunities, SMEs experience a number of problems. SMEs face a lot of uncertainty when there are environmental changes. They have limited resources for acquiring information concerning the market and altering the enterprise’s course. Their response to environmental changes is much different from that in their large counterparts. Large companies can do away with a non-performing business area in their portfolio, but often this is not possible in a single-business organization. The alternatives for responding are constrained by the strategic choices and resources of the firm, and the opportunities available in the industry and business place. Moreover, these challenges may vary between the stages of development of the organization. SMEs form a crucial portion of the economy: the European Economic Area has 20 million SMEs. The Department of Trade as well as Industry (DTI) approximates that there existed 3.8 million SMEs within the UK at the start of 2002, creating jobs for 22.7 million people, with an approximated yearly turnover of  £2200 billion, one of the world’s highest records (DTI, 2003). In the food industry of UK, 99.8% of the restaurant and hotel sector are SMEs. Around 87.7% of business within this sector in micro-businesses creating jobs for less than 10 people (DTI, 2003). The UK population has well embraced fast food culture. According to Brown (2005, p. 3) the UK fast food industry has a yearly turnover of  £7.2 billion, made by serving 1.5 billion meals annually in 20000 outlets, offering employment to almost 200000 people. Humphries (2010) reports that the UK fast food market is double Germany’s size, and