Reducing the Failure Rate of SMEs : Comparative Analysis of Excellence Management Systems: Six Sigma and Lean Start-up
Kaminskaite, Julija (2017)
Metropolia Ammattikorkeakoulu
2017
All rights reserved
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2017052910698
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2017052910698
Tiivistelmä
The purpose of the thesis was to identify a comprehensive list of factors, helping SMEs at early stage to survive and grow through innovation. In the developed world the failure rate of start-ups varies from 70% to 90%, even though there are a lot of resources available, attempting to guide SMEs to business success. Furthermore those SMEs, which manage to survive the start-up phase, come across the other challenge; they get stuck in the situation and do not scale. In most of the economies SMEs account for more than 95% of all the enterprises, therefore it is essential to reduce their failure rate.
In this thesis the qualitative research methodology was applied. Qualitative data was achieved through the case study of Gamevy. Gamevy was a start-up, which attempted to apply Lean Start-up methodology, when bringing a new gaming and gambling product to the market. Prior to that, in this thesis was accomplished a comparative analysis of two Excellence Management Systems: the Six Sigma and the Lean Startup, based on which the key-success factors in common were identified.
The qualitative research revealed that even the most impactful and globally acknowledged methodologies cannot lead SMEs to the successful growth through innovation, if the SMEs go too far from the core of the methodology and make a few critical mistakes. In the case of Gamevy following the Lean Startup, the main causes for the failure were (1) the lack of cross-functional team, which lead to unforeseen lack of skills and costs, (2) insufficient experimenting and testing, which lead to poor interaction with the right market, and (3) lack of structure and metrics, which lead to poor planning, scheduling and finally to the failure.
The author recommends for SMEs at early stage to implement innovation into their strategy, instead viewing it as a thing that must be done once in a certain period. SMEs should dedicate a bigger part of their time for profound planning. Profound planning should lead to precise identification of the problem, the cross-functional innovation team, the suitable environment for experimenting, the structure and the limits of the innovation intent and the clear and actionable metrics to measure the success.
In this thesis the qualitative research methodology was applied. Qualitative data was achieved through the case study of Gamevy. Gamevy was a start-up, which attempted to apply Lean Start-up methodology, when bringing a new gaming and gambling product to the market. Prior to that, in this thesis was accomplished a comparative analysis of two Excellence Management Systems: the Six Sigma and the Lean Startup, based on which the key-success factors in common were identified.
The qualitative research revealed that even the most impactful and globally acknowledged methodologies cannot lead SMEs to the successful growth through innovation, if the SMEs go too far from the core of the methodology and make a few critical mistakes. In the case of Gamevy following the Lean Startup, the main causes for the failure were (1) the lack of cross-functional team, which lead to unforeseen lack of skills and costs, (2) insufficient experimenting and testing, which lead to poor interaction with the right market, and (3) lack of structure and metrics, which lead to poor planning, scheduling and finally to the failure.
The author recommends for SMEs at early stage to implement innovation into their strategy, instead viewing it as a thing that must be done once in a certain period. SMEs should dedicate a bigger part of their time for profound planning. Profound planning should lead to precise identification of the problem, the cross-functional innovation team, the suitable environment for experimenting, the structure and the limits of the innovation intent and the clear and actionable metrics to measure the success.