Smaller Businesses Making a Bigger Difference
We’re delighted to have taken part in TechUK’s recent call for blog contributions focused on the vital role SMEs are playing in the transformation of public services.
Our joint article, “SMEs and Public Service Innovation: Why Smaller Teams Make a Bigger Difference”, explores how small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are not only participating in government service delivery, but they’re also actively shaping it for the better.
In the piece, we touch on several reasons why SMEs are well-positioned to lead in public sector innovation. These include:
Breaking reliance on large, legacy providers by offering open, modular, and interoperable solutions.
Bringing greater agility, which allows smaller teams to pivot quickly, take calculated risks, and tailor solutions in real time.
Building human-centred relationships with public sector teams, grounded in trust, care, and co-creation.
Forming consortia that deliver scale without sacrificing specialism, enabling SMEs to tackle large, complex programmes with flexibility and speed.
We also look further than capability to the value added to by SMEs’ unique culture. SMEs often bring a deep sense of purpose and pride to their work, with flatter structures and closer client relationships. This drives not just better solutions, but also stronger, more sustainable partnerships with government organisations.
The article was a real collaborative effort, and we want to give special thanks to our co-authors:
Sarah Bell and Tracey Geoghegan-Smith from Clarion Insight, Mike MacDonagh from Soft Practice, and William Payne from Atlantic+. As a soon-to-be consortium, we know first-hand the value of working together and bringing combined strengths to support public sector delivery.
We’re excited to share our thinking and to continue the conversation on how SMEs can support government to move faster, deliver better, and keep the human touch at the heart of innovation.
Read the full blog post on TechUK below.