Small business does not distinguish between borders – Newspaper Kommersant No. 232 (7433) of 12/14/2022

The World Economic Forum (WEF), together with the National University of Singapore, presented a report on the prospects for small and medium-sized businesses in the world. The authors of the study note that SMEs are adapting to the changing economic situation faster than large companies, and therefore investors and authorities should more actively support them with investments and grants. This trend is also characteristic of the Russian economy, which has been developing in line with the global economy for the past 30 years. Moreover, those support measures that the WEF is now positioning as anti-crisis measures, the Russian authorities began to deploy even before the crisis caused by the military operation in Ukraine.

The WEF study covers small and medium-sized businesses (up to 250 employees) and medium-sized companies (up to 5 thousand employees) – in total they make up 90% of all companies in the world. Despite this, it is they who are the first to come under attack during “geopolitical tensions”. For this reason, according to WEF analysts, managers of small enterprises, instead of building strategies, are often forced to spend resources on finding ways out of momentary crises. Other challenges that the WEF observes are most common among small businesses are scaling and entering new markets (67%), attracting and retaining employees (48%), developing and implementing new technologies, and with digital transformation (25%), access to finance (24%) and the emergence of new laws and changes in the regulatory environment (22%). In 2022, all this is complicated by more global external problems related to the consequences of the Russian military operation in Ukraine — the global energy crisis, sharply accelerated inflation and social changes.

The readiness of small and medium-sized businesses for the challenges of the future is proposed by forum analysts to be determined based on three factors: the company’s financial stability, focus on ESG values, and the ability to adapt. Most often, the weak point of SMEs is financial resources. To maintain sustainability, the WEF advises small and medium-sized businesses to respond more systematically to difficulties, including by embedding even spontaneous decisions in the context of the company’s key strategies, as well as to more actively share experience and best practices with colleagues. One of the main recommendations of experts is related to the creation of ecosystems that help SMEs expand their participation in digital trade, which, according to the WEF, will reduce the rather serious technological gap between large and medium-sized companies. Among other things, data on digital transactions will make it possible to judge the reliability of organizations and assess their creditworthiness. Part of the experts’ advice is addressed to the authorities, who, analysts believe, should be interested in the development of SMEs no less than the business itself.

The Russian authorities began to guess, and sometimes even outpace, trends in supporting the sector during the COVID-19 pandemic — in particular, this is a transition from point-based problem solving to a systemic one, as the WEF is now advising to do, and separate work with the most successful companies that can ensure economic recovery . After the “covid” testing of the platform approach to state support in early February 2022, the government launched the SSP.RF digital platform, which collects and systematizes small business support measures and services that simplify its receipt. Attention to the sector has been strengthened by the sanctions — with the help of SMEs, which today account for a quarter of all investments in the economy, the authorities want to increase import substitution, and additional support is provided for such companies in the form of an expanded opportunity to participate in supplies for state needs, as well as preferential industry programs for localizing the production of alternatives to scarce now import. The availability of concessional loans and microloans for small companies is growing, and new grant programs are being launched in parallel.

We note, however, that, despite this, the business activity of small and medium-sized businesses in the Russian Federation has been declining in recent months, returning to the indicators of spring 2022 (see Kommersant of November 21), as, however, it is declining in most countries peace.

Christina Borovikova