SBP’s SME Growth Index provides an innovative approach to understanding how and why small firms grow, or fail. It provides government and policy makers with much needed empirical evidence that helps differentiate the internal and external factors that influence whether a small business is a survivalist with limited prospects for growth and employment creation, or able to create jobs and livelihoods for a broad range of individuals. This information is critical in informing government’s economic and SME support strategy as well as job creation goals.

The project’s overall objectives are therefore to:

• Establish a credible set of comparative analytical data at particular points in time to assess the impact of changes in the operating and regulatory environment impacting on SMEs in South Africa;
• Identify patterns in SME firm growth;
• Analyse the types of internal and external variables that differentiate between firms that are creating jobs and improving turnover, and those that are not and why;
• Provide government and government agencies with empirical evidence-based data to help differentiate factors that support – or impede – small firm growth