The Muamalat Newsletter Vol. 1 2024

FEM eNewsletter | June 2024 51 face in attracting and retaining talented individuals, due to limited career progression opportunities and the high costs associated with top-tier expertise (Cui et al., 2018). While some business owners may bring significant corporate experience and relevant skills to their entrepreneurial ventures, this is not universally the case. Consequently, a lack of deep expertise within SMEs can lead to inadequate planning or ineffective management practices, giving rise to what might be termed “illusory flexibility”. This type of flexibility is reactionary rather than strategic, arising from the need to adapt hastily to immediate challenges without the benefit of foresight or structured planning. Furthermore, SMEs typically focus on immediate, short-term issues, allocating most of their resources to address pressing concerns one at a time. Strategic, long-term planning often falls by the wayside due to this short-term focus, and the responsibility for any such planning usually rests solely with the business owners. If these owners do not habitually engage in forward-thinking, the organization is unlikely to have any structured approach to future challenges. This mindset can prevail as long as owners feel they have control and do not see the necessity for demonstrating accountability to others. However, in situations where SMEs are managed by owners who practice proactive long-term planning and effective communication with their teams, these enterprises tend to perform better over the mid-to-long term (Kotsantonis et al., 2019). Additionally, when multiple stakeholders are involved, and decisions require broader approval, these SMEs may demonstrate a greater propensity for advance planning. This collaborative approach not only fosters better preparedness but can also enhance the overall strategic direction of the business. Effective planning is a sophisticated corporate exercise that demands a high level of expertise and knowledge (Ramirez, 2024). The inability to foresee potential scenarios or consider various factors simultaneously can compromise the effectiveness of planning efforts, often resulting in outcomes that fall short of expectations. Consequently, businesses may encounter more surprises or required changes to their plans than anticipated. Often, these so-called surprises are actually foreseeable elements that were overlooked or insufficiently weighed during the planning stage. For SMEs, this necessitates frequent modifications to their strategies, which might be mischaracterized as flexibility, but in essence, represent a reactive adjustment rather than genuine adaptability. On the other hand, if SMEs could refine their planning processes and better prepare for future conditions, they could address issues with more favourable results. Enhancing the detail and scope of their plans to anticipate a broader array of factors does not diminish an SME’s ability to remain flexible. Instead, thorough preparation reduces the number of competing demands for attention and resources, enabling businesses to manage unexpected situations more effectively. When planning is deficient, businesses are perpetually unprepared, compelling them to constantly demonstrate flexibility. Viewing this constant state of reactivity as flexibility is misleading. True flexibility involves the capacity to adapt strategically within the framework of well-considered plans, not merely responding to unanticipated events as they arise. Thus, enhancing planning processes empowers SMEs not just to react with agility but to proactively shape their future trajectory in a more controlled and informed manner. Flexibility is often hailed as a key strength of SMEs, providing them with a competitive edge in a dynamic business environment (Schilke, 2014). However, not every fluid