Small Business Competitive Edge Vocabulary

Vocabulary flashcards focusing on how small businesses build competitive advantages against large corporations using integrity, customer focus, quality, innovation, and niche marketing.

Competitive Advantage

The edge gained by a firm over its competitors by exploiting opportunities to make products or services cheaper, faster, and better.

Commitment to Integrity

The starting point of any competitive advantage, setting a business apart with a reputation for trust determined by the core values of the entrepreneur.

Customer Focus

The ability of small businesses to serve customers directly and effectively by avoiding layers of bureaucracy and corporate policies that stifle employee initiative.

MFI International Manufacturing

A small business based in El Paso, Texas, owned by Lance and Cecilia Levine, which demonstrates high-level quality performance integrated into its business culture.

Lance and Cecilia Levine

The owners of MFI International Manufacturing who emphasize that a small business can successfully compete on quality without corporate bureaucracy.

Innovation

Developments in products, services, or competitive strategies within reach of small businesses, often enabled and leveled by technology.

Clayton Christensen

The late former professor at Harvard Business School and author of The Innovator's Dilemma who documented how established companies miss major industry transformations.

The Innovator's Dilemma

A book by Clayton Christensen documenting how large, established companies miss major transformations in industries like computers, telephones, photography, and stock markets.

Niche Market

A specific, narrow target group of customers who share identifiable product or service interests, or a specific geographical area.

Entrepreneurial Culture

An organizational atmosphere typical of small firms that encourages employee engagement and creative incentives, unlike traditional corporate bureaucracies.