Financing Growth and Turning Data into Business
Helping SMEs Scale Up
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Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that scale up have long raised policy interest for their extraordinary potential in terms of job creation, innovation, competitiveness and economic growth. Yet, little is known about which firms could effectively become scalers, and what policies could effectively promote SME growth. This report is part of a series aiming to help policy makers unleash scalers’ potential. Building on new evidence from microdata work, it rethinks the nature and scope of scale up policies, suggesting the need for a broader and more cross cutting approach. The report then explores two thematic areas that are relevant for SME scaling up, i.e. SME data governance and their access to ‘scale up’ finance. Based on an international mapping of 369 institutions and 1174 policy initiatives across OECD countries, the analysis shows that SME and entrepreneurship policy is not among the core mandates of many implementing institutions, calling for sound coordination across the board and further mainstreaming of SME growth considerations in both policy areas. Moreover, national policy mixes vary significantly across countries, reflecting different approaches to promoting SME growth and to SME targeting, but also revealing possible policy blind spots.
Turning data into business
Data have become a key asset for increasing productivity and innovation capacity, and enabling SMEs to scale up. Yet SMEs are less aware of the potential and need for them to implement better data governance. This chapter aims to understand how governments create the incentives and conditions for improving SME data governance. It first presents the rationale and scope for policy intervention, and proposes an analytical framework for mapping relevant national policies and institutions in this area. Based on cross-country analysis of 487 policies and 209 institutions across the OECD, the report provides an overview of the policy mixes governments have put in place to enhance SME access to, protection and exploitation of data, as well as on the institutional and governance arrangements behind.
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