SME business analysis. : A railway case study

Abstract: The purpose of this thesis is to study and investigate one department of a SME -active intechnical documentation at railway industry-on the challenges of applying and implementing some strategic management tools on its organization. To understand these challenges, a business planning process has been designed, implemented and documented during the thesis. This process has given the author the ability to answer the research question based on limited experience from this especial case study. However finding of this thesis can be an initial step to study the issue deeper with a group of different case studies to reach general findings. The result from this study provided some starting points to research about reasons why SMEs have such high risks of failure in the initial years of their establishment. On this especial case study, challenges were about two main issue. 1. The process of using strategic management tools were not rather a simple collection of strategic information but a complicated process of defining, answering and deciding serious strategic questions. 2. Lack of an independent organization inside the SME company in which the only responsibility is to ensure that strategies are being implemented on all levels. This can bean extra burden on the executive management team since they are dealing with everyday tasks related to everyday operations and could damage the task of ensuring that strategy is being fully implemented. The thesis act as an initial investigation and further investigations must be applied on big diverse groups of case studies to reach to general finding which can be applied and benefited by industry.