An Exciting New Book for Owner Managers

The Small and Medium Sized Enterprise (SME) is arguably the Cinderella of the UK economy. They receive no glamour, they are driven by hardworking entrepreneurs and family owners and currently are paying a heavy price for the banking industry’s mistakes. In this climate it is imperative that they manage the performance of their business.

Here are some stats from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR):

SMEs make up 99% of the economy.
There are under 4.8 million enterprises with a workforce of just under 30 million people
Nearly 3.5 million are one man [person] band
1.3 million are employers employing 14.23 million individuals
858,245 have up to 4 employees
221,600 have between 5-9 employees

Yet most management texts relating to performance improvement are geared towards larger organisations. Even the few books aimed at SMEs are directed at a student and academic audience rather than the practitioner.


This compelled me to write a book on this topic with my colleague Amanda Beech. The book is written in a humorous and light hearted way but does not compromise on substance. It has deliberately been written as a commuter book that the reader can dip in and out of with takeaway tasks at the end of each chapter to be applied to the owner's business.

The book entitled "When Sam met Angie: Balanced Scorecard for SMEs" has been endorsed by leading thinkers in both practice and academia.

Professor Andy Neely is one of the world leading academics in Performance Management and holds dual Chairs in the University of Cambridge and Cranfield University. In addition, he is the Deputy Director of the Applied Institute of Management (AIM), the UK’s leading think tank for Management.

Brett Knowles is the founder of PM2, an international consultancy specialising in Performance Management. Three of his clients appear in the Kaplan and Norton (the authors of the balanced scorecard) hall of fame and he is regarded as an international thought leader on the Balanced Scorecard.

Here is the link to the book. If you would like to find out more, please feel free to email me.

http://www.smedoc.co.uk/books/detail.asp?Product_ID=4