SME Archives - Simon White

Promoting local SME participation in public procurement

April 10, 2023

6 min read

Promoting local SME participation in public procurement

Promoting local small- and medium-enterprise (SME) participation in public procurement markets should be crucial in any government’s support for local economic development. I will never forget the experience of working in Glasgow many years ago in housing estates that contained extremely high levels of multigenerational unemployment. I remember meeting men and women who sat idling…

Overcoming the barriers to SME participation in public procurement

April 10, 2023

6 min read

Overcoming the barriers to SME participation in public procurement

Government agencies can take steps to overcome the barriers to small- and medium-enterprise (SME) participation in public procurement to enhance local employment and economic outcomes. Public procurement is an important source of market opportunity for businesses. It has been used to drive industrial development through government demand for industrial innovation and technological change since the 1970s,…

Business Environments|Economic Development|Job Creation|Private Sector Development

Small Business Development

January 4, 2022

13 min read

This article introduces the concept of small business and the approach to small business development. It answers the questions: Why are small businesses important? How to support small business development? This topic includes micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. The article introduces important nuances in our understanding of the role small businesses play in the economy and…

Business Environments|Job Creation|Private Sector Development

Private Sector Development

sticky January 3, 2022

6 min read

This article introduces the concept of the private sector and private sector development. It answers the questions: What is the private sector? What is private sector development? This topic is important, not only for economic development and job creation, but also because it is increasingly used to deliver social services. Private sector development encompasses a…

The SME Test: Assessing the impact of new laws and regulations on SMEs

November 20, 2021

4 min read

New laws and regulations quickly accumulate and cause administrative overload for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) because the costs of compliance are often disproportionately higher than for large enterprises. In many countries, the number of laws and regulations adopted each year to which SMEs must comply is increasing dramatically. While this is not a bad…

Economic Development|Innovation|Public Policy|Vibrant Economies

Supporting Public-Private Partnerships for Industry Development

August 31, 2019

6 min read

Dealing with the practical problems private firms face when nurturing innovative processes; lessons from Rwanda Industry development and commercial innovation are often presented in idealised terms, focusing on shiny new start-ups and ignoring the struggle of existing firms. It is challenging to understand the practical problems of private firms face and use this information to…

Entrepreneurial Places|Innovation|Local Economic Development|Regional Development

Frugal innovations contribution to regional and economic development

sticky September 14, 2018

7 min read

I’ve been working on policy guidance to encourage frugal innovation (more on this later) and want to share my thoughts on the relevance of frugal innovation for regional and local economic development. Frugal innovation has been promoted as a business management practice that can be applied in resource-constrained conditions. However, it is also relevant for…

Business Environments|Job Creation|Private Sector Development|Public Policy

Policy preferences for small businesses

September 11, 2018

8 min read

Many governments around the world assign policy preferences for small businesses. These policy preferences support business development and job creation. There are two rationales for this. First, micro and small enterprises deserve special attention because of their overall contribution to national development. As a total sector, micro and small enterprises are major contributors to employment in almost…

Entrepreneurship|Job Creation|Private Sector Development|Public Policy

SME Development Agencies

October 30, 2017

7 min read

Over the last few months, I’ve provided advice to a number of government funded national SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) development agencies. Such agencies are very popular among governments, but less so among enterprise development specialist. While they can focus government efforts on supporting the small business sector, they can easily become expensive bureaucracies that…

Business Environments|Entrepreneurship|Innovation|Job Creation|Public Policy

Global economy drives SME growth and job creation

October 18, 2017

9 min read

This article examines how the global economy drives SME growth and job creation. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in economic development and job creation. While the general features of this role are understood, there are many features of this that require more research. Of particular interest to countries and regions around the…

Entrepreneurship|Public Policy

Do financial services lead to SME growth? It depends…

August 12, 2017

4 min read

Around the world, most businesspeople identify lack of access to finance as the major inhibitor to growth. Typically, poor access to finance is, on its own, symptomatic of a number of problems businesses experience. Poor business management, weak or crowded markets, a lack of a track record in business, and the lack of collateral are…

Arguments on Africa de-industrialisation

May 22, 2014

9 min read

It’s been interesting to observe the range of arguments surrounding the topic of “Africa’s de-industralisation”. These range from whether or not Africa is indeed de-industralising, to how best to re-industrialise. Within these discussions there are interesting debates on the role of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the importance of business environment reform, the need for…

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