Techniques to support strategic business change

This paper is concerned with analysing some “soft” methods and tools that have been used as part of a toolset to help small to medium sized manufacturing enterprises develop a better understanding of their business and hence to develop better business strategies as a result. The paper is separated into two parts. The first outlines the problem domain and additionally defines what is meant by “soft” in many of the approaches taken to support this domain. The second provides a brief description of a selection of the methods and supporting tools which have been applied as part of the toolset. The tools and methods described have been developed as part of an EPSRC research grant awarded to the MSI Research Institute at Loughborough University, UK