There’s talk from time to time about business being too top heavy, too greedy, too much aimed at getting bigger, too much emphasis on global markets. All of that happens and a range of studies and anecdotal evidence shows that bigger is often not better, in fact it can be like a person with too much weight, they can not move fast enough to be of much concern to anyone that wants to rush by them to get to new markets, develop new products and get scores on the board more readily.It seems there is a critical mass that takes a business to the next level and onwards, to me the idea would be to create businesses that can identify that level, get to it and use solid business principles to make it sustainable and nimble.

It also seems that with the pace of change businesses that thrived 30 years ago, seem unable to embrace change and move with the times, if a manufacturing business started in this country 30 years back, but has now moved off shore to cheaper labour based countries and organisations then so be it.

So what’s the answer, business is changing, things are moving faster and the old-fashioned sustainability model of a business lasting 30+ years is fading fast. Take a look at business today, someone starts up a business, they create some marketing, figure out the compliance and legal issues, arrange finance and away they go. The thing is people are doing that over and over each day there are a million businesses that set up the same things (or very close to it). What if we were able to reproduce a core business structure that could handle the main similar functions of a business then run the main part of the business off that core?

Its basically called outsourcing, some business incubators do it, where they offer a business (usually a small one person show) a serviced office arrangement, phones answered, copying done, IT infrastructure etc. So what if it was done on a larger scale to ensure sustainability and then each business could get on with the task of doing what they do best. Then unlike some incubators that throw the business out to run on their own, what if they remained with that business to assist in its growth to critical mass.

Seeing drawbacks? Of course! It would not suit every business and in fact most businesses would probably prefer to do it their way (a sense of power and control) however the challenge with that is too many businesses fail in the first 12 months. And more don’t make it in the next five years and so on.

The idea is no doubt fraught with challenges, however if the model could prevent business failures, provide core strength, allow fast operational changes on the run, provide the skills and ability to get to critical mass earlier then that would surely be a saving, no, in fact it would probably