Issues in owning and managing a small business in developing and poor countries.
Excerpt:
Everyone is talking about small businesses. In 1993, when it was allowed in Developing countries, more than 90,000 new firms were registered by individuals. Now, less than three years later, official figures show that only 40,000 of them still pay their dues and present annual financial statements. These firms are called "active" - but this is a misrepresentation. Only a very small fraction really does business and produces income.
Why this reversal? Why were people so enthusiastic to register companies - and then became too desperate to operate them?
Small business is more than a fashion or a buzzword. In the USA, only small businesses create new jobs. The big dinosaur firms (the "blue-chips") create negative employment - they fire people. This trend has a glitzy name: downsizing.
In Israel many small businesses became world class exporters and big companies in world terms. The same goes, to a lesser extent, in Britain and in Germany.
Virtually every Western country has a "Small Business Administration" (SBA). These agencies provide many valuable services to small businesses:
They help them organize funding for all their needs: infrastructure, capital goods (machinery and equipment), land, working capital, licence and patent fees and charges, etc.
The SBAs have access to government funds, to local venture capital funds, to international and multilateral investment sources, to the local banking community and to private investors. They act as capital brokers at a fraction of the costs that private brokers and organized markets charge.
They assist the entrepreneur in the preparation of business plans, feasibility studies, application forms, questionnaires - and any other thing which the new start-up venture might need to raise funds to finance its operations.
This saves the new business a lot of money. The costs of preparing such documents in the private sector amount to thousands of DM per document.
They reduce bureaucracy. They mediate between the small business and the various tentacles of the government. They become the ONLY address which the new business should approach, a "One Stop Shop".
But why do new (usually small) businesses need special treatment and encouragement at all? And if they do need it - what are the best ways to provide them with this help?
A new business goes through phases in the business cycle (very similar to the stages of human life).
The first phase - is the formation of an idea. A person - or a group of people join forces, centred around one exciting invention, process or service.
