THE ROLE OF MARKETING MANAGEMENT IN FAST-GROWING SMALL ENTERPRISES - PLANNING OR MANAGING CRITICAL OPPORTUNITIES?

The value of Business planning in general and marketing planning in particular is attested to by numerous textbooks and consultants. Supported by the inability among scholars to find a clear connection between planning and market success, though, we argue that in the case of small, fast-growing firms planning in the traditional sense is largely futile. This is especially the case for firms existing in a volatile environment. We highlight this position in three case vignettes drawn from an empirical study of four fast-growing small firms. This material indicates that firms develop not because of marketing plans, but when grasping critical opportunities in the environment, opportunities for which it would have been impossible to plan in advance. Rather then wasting efforts making elaborate plans, firms should thus create an infrastructur e that can identify and take care of such opportunities. This can be done by being present where critical opportunities might arise and by employing "opportunity recognisers".