Introduction
Small Enterprises are very
important for the economy of every country. These small enterprises create many
jobs for the people in the country. Even though they contributes highly to the
economy they still faces many challenges in surviving.
Sometimes small enterprises are
neglected in as they may not be able to keep up with satisfaction level of
their customers. Starting and managing a small enterprise will include facing
different types of challenges such as success and failure. Sometimes it just
takes one simple mistake or one wrong decision from the management and it may
lead to the end of that particular enterprise.
For this topic the challenges among
small and micro enterprises in Nairobi-Kenya will be discussed and analyzed.
According to the research report done by Michael Bowen, Makarius Morara and Samuel
Mureithi for the KCA JOURNAL OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT 50 percent of new jobs are
created in Kenya from the SME sector. They also highlighted that the health of
the economy as a whole is related to the health and nature of micro and small
enterprise sector.
Data Collection
and Analysis
For the referenced research report
a questionnaire was used to collect primary data. The respondents were business
owners or those involved in the start-up and day to day running of these
businesses.
Figure 1:
Rating of Business Performance
According to the figure 1 the
responded managers and business owners are categorized in male and female.
Among these respondents 5.6% people are saying that their business is failing
and majority of them; that is a 50% of them responded as their business to be
deteriorating. The least of them which is a 2.5% of the managers and business
owners are saying that their business is very successful and the rest 41.9% of
them are saying their business is successful.
Figure 2: Age Distribution by Business positions

Figure 3: Relationship between
Performance and level of Education
For any kind of business whether it
is small enterprise or a large company; having a well-qualified and well
educated team leads to success of the business. In this chart 100% of the
people who has finished primary school said that their business is not doing
well. These people does not seem to have any other qualifications or any
training regarding the business field. On the other hand people who have
completed secondary school (75.4%) and those who haven’t completed secondary
school (87.5%) said that their business is doing well. Which is a higher
percent than the people who have a training and finished university and above. But
compared to the less educated people and higher educated people, the business
run by the less educated people are not doing so well with their business. Whereas
the higher educated and well training people are doing well with their
business.
Figure 4: Training versus Business Performance
This figure determines the
relationship between business performance and the training provided in the
business related field. So as per the results for a business doing poorly 50.5%
of the responded said that they were ell trained but the majority of them which
is a 60.8% said that they are not trained. This indicates that the poor the
training the poor the performance. Whereas for a business doing well 49.5% of
the respondents said that they were trained accordingly and 39.2% said that
they did not get ant training. And again majority claims that well trained
business perform well.
Conclusion
Each and every small enterprise is
different from one another and has its unique factors for success and failure. Some
business might face different challenges from each other. With the analysis of
the above data it is clear that the small enterprises also should consider what
is trending globally and move with the flow in the economy. They can focus more
about the increasing and decreasing in the demand of certain factors and
trends.
As discussed before proper training
in the relevant area is important for a successful enterprise. Managers and
business owners are responsible for running a successful business. If they are
well trained and educated their understanding level about the market, economy
and challenges for the small enterprises will be clear. Knowing their customer
needs and wants is the key feature for a successful business.
Determining the age category and
customer requirements should be taken considerate. For this research people of
above 40s does not seem to have been able to run a successful business. Which may
be due to lack of knowledge about their customer wants and needs. But on the
other hand managers of their early 20s and late 30s seem to know what they are
doing in the business as they run their business as a success.
References
Bowen, M., Morara, M., & Mureithi, S. (2009).
MANAGEMENT OF BUSINESS CHALLENGES AMONG SMALL AND MICRO ENTERPRISES IN
NAIROBI-KENYA. KCA JOURNAL OF BUSINESS MANAGEMENT.