26th International Association for Management of Technology Conference - IAMOT 2017

The South African BOP is gaining increasing popularity as a lucrative market for entrepreneurs who are willing to align their businesses with the particular requirements necessary for operating in the BOP. Though SME owners are coming to appreciate the potential for alleviating poverty profitably, they lack a framework by which they can guide their efforts to achieve higher levels of growth. Of the many types of organisations that operate in the BOP, for-profit SMEs have come into the limelight in recent years as an ideal mechanism for dealing with social inequalities and promoting economic growth. In this paper the aim is to develop a framework to guide SME owners and managers operating in the BOP towards attaining sustained profitable growth. Under the tenets of Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), a systematic literature review of high growth factors was conducted in order to arrive at a comprehensive list of factors which arguably contribute most significantly to an SME’s ability to attain sustained high growth. In total, 25 high growth factors were identified from the systematic literature review, of which four were found to be of pivotal importance to SME owners and managers pursuing high growth. The four factors include: the use of a business model for detailed planning; the incorporation of a suitable and detailed business strategy for long-term growth; the utilisation of innovation to consistently improve value offerings and respond promptly to changes in the market, and; the implementation of good marketing practices to ensure value is delivered to the customer. In addition to the high growth factors, an area of concern determined to be necessary for sustained growth in the BOP was that of sustainable development. The four high growth factors and the additional sustainable development factor were scrutinised in light of the South African BOP context, and then developed into unique yet inter-dependent systems. The systems act so as to guide the owners and managers of SMEs operating in the BOP towards the attainment of higher growth. Each of the systems were combined to arrive at the high growth promoting framework for SME action at the BOP. The framework was validated via two routes. Firstly, a semi-structured interview with experts in the field was conducted, i.e. expert analyses. Secondly, a retrospective case study was employed wherein the framework was applied successfully. The framework was deemed valid according to both the expert analyses and the case study. Potential for future research exists in way of the remaining high growth factors that were not addressed in this study, due to limitations of scope. Addressing these with respect to the BOP context, and amending the framework appropriately, will improve the framework’s ability to guide SME owners and managers towards sustainable high growth.