The 3 Decisions You Can’t Keep Putting Off
SMEs face three urgent challenges that will shape their future. Most are still stalling.
A few days ago, an entrepreneur in the industrial sector was complaining to me about the shortage of talent. He was precise about it: he wasn't using the word loosely. He meant people with the intellectual capacity, natural aptitude, or acquired skills to do a job well and effectively. Not just warm bodies. People who can actually perform. And he's not alone. There are workers out there, but not qualified ones. This has been a recurring theme in Fòrum Creix® peer group conversations for years now. With birth rates falling, we need to tackle this head-on by asking an uncomfortable question: how do we get this done with fewer people?
At the same time, two partners in a professional services firm are worried because they're both approaching sixty with no succession plan in sight. Their children work in the business but have no interest in taking over, and the company depends so heavily on the two of them that its value is genuinely uncertain. There are four places where succession gets sorted out: the boardroom, the kitchen table, the hospital, or the funeral home. Right now, they still have the first two options available. But they need to start moving.
Then there's a tech entrepreneur whose business model is collapsing under the weight of AI. AI was supposed to make life easier, and it has, just not for everyone (at least not in the short term). AI hasn't extended the digital transformation of companies; it's ended it. The question is no longer how to improve business processes by adding technology. It's about redesigning them from the ground up. Just like during the gold rush, when the only people who reliably got rich were the ones selling picks and jeans, it's time to stop playing around with chatbots and start thinking seriously about how to get a real return from this technology.
Talent, succession, and technology are the three defining challenges facing SMEs around the world right now. They will determine long-term outcomes. We hear that SMEs need to grow in scale, and all three of these forces can either drive that growth or block it entirely, depending on whether leaders make deliberate decisions or just ride the wave.
© Oriol López Villena 2026