SMEs - a South African perspective on SME start up and growth
SMEs - a South African perspective on SME start up and growth
Legislation that forces the use of incorporated entities such as closed corporations, cooperatives and various forms of companies, when tendering for government business, has seen a massive increase in the number of legal business entities registered. This has skewed the data massively, and therefore no true assessment of the growth in the SME establishment rate can be made.
The problem is further skewed by the fact that no one tracks the establishment of sole proprietors and partnerships, and often partnerships such as law practices often make use of legal entities for the trading component of their partnership. This leads to increased duplicate numbers of businesses being counted if at all.
Previously all businesses had to be registered with their local municipality. This has largely fallen away and is longer a requirement in most towns and cities. As a result overtrading is common in many towns. Examples include IT suppliers, tyre fitment and signwriting businesses.
It is imperative that a database of SME's in South Africa be established which is accurate, so that interventions and their impact can be correctly assessed. Only once we have established a means to evaluate our interventions can we measure their success and change them if necessary to be meaningful. Like any good business, market research and intelligence is critical in our decision making.
It would also help in establishing sustainable businesses, by providing guidance to businesses to reduce overtrading.
Rob Smorfitt
SMEs a South African perspective on SME start up and growth - To learn more about this author, visit Dr. Rob Smorfitt's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
A major problem that exists in South Africa, is simply that no one knows how many SME's exist! Current estimates vary from 1.2 million to 3 million. The margin of variance is too vast to make any meaningful contribution to the debate regarding SME development in South Africa.
Legislation that forces the use of incorporated entities such as closed corporations, cooperatives and various forms of companies, when tendering for government business, has seen a massive increase in the number of legal business entities registered. This has skewed the data massively, and therefore no true assessment of the growth in the SME establishment rate can be made.
The problem is further skewed by the fact that no one tracks the establishment of sole proprietors and partnerships, and often partnerships such as law practices often make use of legal entities for the trading component of their partnership. This leads to increased duplicate numbers of businesses being counted if at all.
Previously all businesses had to be registered with their local municipality. This has largely fallen away and is longer a requirement in most towns and cities. As a result overtrading is common in many towns. Examples include IT suppliers, tyre fitment and signwriting businesses.
It is imperative that a database of SME's in South Africa be established which is accurate, so that interventions and their impact can be correctly assessed. Only once we have established a means to evaluate our interventions can we measure their success and change them if necessary to be meaningful. Like any good business, market research and intelligence is critical in our decision making.
It would also help in establishing sustainable businesses, by providing guidance to businesses to reduce overtrading.
Rob Smorfitt
SMEs a South African perspective on SME start up and growth - To learn more about this author, visit Dr. Rob Smorfitt's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 | |
 |
No article feedback found. |
| |
Leave Your Feedback |
 | |
| |||
Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
|||
Staging DivaDebra Gould, aka The Staging Diva®, is President of Six Elements Inc., an internationally recognized home staging company. Inspired by many requests from aspiring home stagers wanting to start similar businesses, Gould created the Staging Diva Home Staging Business Training Program. Gould has trained over 1000 Staging Diva Graduates worldwide to start staging businesses. Buying decorating and selling six of her own homes in four years lead to an interest in real estate staging which she turned into a career with the launch of sixelements.com in 2002. Since then she has staged hundreds of homes in addition to teaching home staging training. Gould is the author of several home staging resources including a series of popular ebooks made up of a Design Guide, Color Guide and Portfolio Guide. For more information about Debra Gould visit stagingdiva.com. - Visit Staging Diva's Website |
|||
Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
|||
Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
|||
Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
 | |
|  |
Subscribe to Dr. Rob's articles
 |
|
SME, SMB, SMME, all the debate and info - A resource on SME, SMB and SMME.
|
|
 |
 | |
|
| |
 | |||||||
|
 | ||
|
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
| ||
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
|
|
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
"Learn straight from Evan how you can Make a Full Time Income (And More) from a Website"
Click Here To Learn More |
|
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
|
 Host Beneficiary Double Digit Growth eguide Adopting Creative Thinking Residual Income Acronym Soup |
|
 | ||
 |
Top 50 Productivity Blogs
Top Blogs To Watch In 2009 | |
 |
Choose A PR Topic
Press Release Builder | |
| ||
 | ||||
| ||||
|
| ||||
| ||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||
|
Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
|
|
|
