|
Happy Holidays
This will be the final 2003 edition of e-News. From everyone here at the National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship, we wish you a happy holiday season and a prosperous 2004.
Women Entrepreneurs and Campaign 2004
Here at NDE, we always thought women entrepreneurs were pretty cool. Well, it seems that the
Democrats and Republicans are finally getting that message in advance of next year’s election. A new poll released last week by the Oklahoma-based Women Impacting Public Policy and pollsters Linda DiVall and Celinda Lake finds that women entrepreneurs may become this year’s soccer moms. According to the poll, women business owners are “up for grabs” in the 2004 election. Their party affiliations are evenly split among Democrats (34 percent), Republicans (39 percent) and Independent (22 percent). Because of these dynamics, whoever wins the White House will need a message that resonates with women entrepreneurs. What are their concerns? Jobs and the economy top the list followed by (in order) “moral values,” taxes, education, and health care.
To learn more about the poll, check out Brian Faler’s article in the December 10, 2003 edition of The Washington Post at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50945-2003Dec9.html
To learn more about WIPP, visit www.wipp.org
Small Business Lending Stats
The Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Office of Advocacy has been doing yeoman’s work on the research front as of late, publishing lots of interesting data on the state of small business in America. The latest reports, Small Business Lending in the United States and Micro-Business Friendly Banks in the United States, take a look at how small businesses are financing their daily operations and their growth plans. While the total number of bank business loans declined, small business lending actually grew by a small amount in the June 2000 to June 2001 period. The value of loans in the range of $250,000 to $1 million grew the fastest (5.7 percent), while smaller loans (under $100,000) grew by only 1.7 percent. However, the total number of these smaller loans grew quite rapidly, rising by 45 percent during the study period. There does appear to be some good news on the horizon as banks are recognizing that small businesses can be good customers. Community banks remain very entrenched in this market, but large multi-state banks are also aggressively courting entrepreneurs through small business credit cards and other vehicles. The report singles out BB&T, Regions Financial Corporation, Synovus, MBNA, Citibank and Wells Fargo as large institutions with an especially strong interest in the small business market place.
To learn more about the studies, Small Business Lending in the United States and Micro-Business Friendly Banks in the United States, visit
http://www.sba.gov/advo/stats/lending/2002/rbsbl02.pdf
Reforming SBA
While SBA is putting out some top-notch data, the agency still has a way to go in terms of its overall efficiency and effectiveness. That’s the message from a new General Accounting Office review of SBA’s ongoing reform initiatives. The study, Small Business Administration: Progress Made but Transformation Could Benefit from Practices Emphasizing Transparency and Communication, argues that SBA’s transformation plans have made a head start. But, they are unlikely to progress further unless SBA’s leadership clarifies who has responsibility for implementation, link interim performance measures to strategic goals, and communicate the plan throughout the organization and to external stakeholders. In other words, the hard part is just beginning. According to GAO, this effort needs greater input and participation from current SBA employees.
The October 2003 (released in December 2003) GAO Study, Small Business Administration: Progress Made but Transformation Could Benefit from Practices Emphasizing Transparency and Communication (GAO-04-76), can be accessed at
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d0476.pdf
The State of Entrepreneurship in Australia and Europe
This week, we bring you news from across the oceans with an update on the state of entrepreneurship in Australia and in Europe. First, from the “Land Down Under” comes an interesting survey of finalists for Australia’s annual Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. The survey asked the country’s 135 leading entrepreneurs to comment on their assessment of the business climate and its impact on their companies. The survey’s headline, “Australian Entrepreneurs Feel Undervalued but Remain Upbeat,” says it all. While these companies are upbeat, they feel that the Australian government does little to support them. Issues of business taxation, especially the desire for more effective incentives, rank high among their concerns. For early start-ups, access to finance remains a primary challenge. For more established firms, the primary issue becomes access to talent—a trend that we see worldwide.
Meanwhile, over in Europe, a recent Harvard Business School conference examined some of the unique issues facing European entrepreneurs. Not surprisingly, conference participants offered both good news and bad news. On the good news front, European start-ups can sometimes have an easier time finding funding with the right business model. But, once a firm has started, European companies face a tougher road in growing to scale because European markets are more fragmented due to differing cultures, histories, and the like. Conference participants also noted that new European firms have important competitive advantages in fields like nanotechnology, mobile products, games, and 2.5 and 3G wireless.
|