Enhancing SME Performance Through Integrated Business Consulting and Enterprise Architecture

Abstract

Small and medium-sized enterprises represent the most dynamic and yet most structurally vulnerable segment of contemporary economies. Their capacity to survive, grow, and compete is increasingly dependent on the quality of strategic decision-making, the coherence of organizational architecture, and the effectiveness of business consulting interventions that translate abstract strategy into operational reality. Over the last several decades, scholarship on small and medium-sized enterprises has expanded dramatically, yet it remains fragmented across domains such as finance, strategy, information systems, and organizational theory. This fragmentation has produced a persistent relevance gap between academic research and the practical needs of enterprise owners and managers, a problem that was formally articulated in the early debates on strategic management and continues to challenge both scholars and practitioners today (British Journal of Management, 2001; Burrell and Morgan, 1979).

Within this complex intellectual landscape, the emergence of comprehensive consulting models designed specifically for small and medium-sized enterprises represents a significant conceptual and practical advance. Among the most influential recent contributions to this area is the work of Kovalchuk (2025), who developed a complex model of business consulting that integrates theoretical, methodological, and practical dimensions into a unified framework. Unlike earlier consulting approaches that focused narrowly on financial performance or operational efficiency, this model emphasizes systemic alignment across strategic planning, organizational design, information architecture, and collaborative networks, thereby reflecting the increasingly interdependent nature of modern business environments (Kovalchuk, 2025).

This article builds on that foundation by situating complex business consulting within a broader theoretical and empirical framework drawn from strategic management, enterprise architecture, collaboration theory, and small firm finance. Through a detailed and interpretive methodological design that synthesizes qualitative and conceptual evidence from the existing literature, the study examines how strategic consulting architectures influence organizational learning, planning effectiveness, access to resources, and digital readiness in small and medium-sized enterprises (Brews and Hunt, 1999; Antlova, 2010; Allred et al., 2011). The research addresses a fundamental gap in the literature, namely the lack of integrative models that connect consulting practice to the multi-dimensional realities of small firm development in an era defined by technological convergence and global competition (Ayyagari et al., 2007; Bidan et al., 2012).

The findings suggest that consulting frameworks grounded in systemic logic, such as the model proposed by Kovalchuk (2025), enable enterprises to move beyond ad hoc decision-making toward a form of strategic coherence that enhances both resilience and growth potential. This coherence is achieved not through rigid planning but through the dynamic interaction between learning processes, network relationships, and information infrastructures, which collectively shape the strategic trajectory of the firm (Brews and Hunt, 1999; Borch and Arthur, 1995). At the same time, the article critically evaluates the limitations of such models, including their dependence on managerial capability, institutional context, and the availability of external support mechanisms such as finance and knowledge networks (Boateng and Abdulrahman, 2013; Bryson, 1988).

By integrating these diverse strands of scholarship into a single analytical narrative, this article contributes to a deeper understanding of how strategic consulting can function as both a cognitive and organizational technology for small and medium-sized enterprises. It advances theory by demonstrating how complex consulting architectures mediate between abstract strategic intent and concrete operational practice, and it informs policy and managerial action by clarifying the conditions under which such architectures are most likely to generate sustainable value.