BGI has selected the following Key Practice Areas as those that are most critical to helping enterprises succeed. These key resources can provide you with invaluable resources such as:
best practices documents that define each approach
publications and reviews that provide details and strategies for success
tools and indicators for measuring growth and business climate
business plans that understand the unique challenges of emerging economies
organizations and support systems that can provide you with the help you need
What are the key areas of focus for success in Enterprise Development?
Business Enabling Environment
A positive business environment will foster enterprise development and overall economic growth. Determining what constitutes a positive business environment can depend widely on factors often outside the influence of the average business owner. The wide range of factors affecting business environments includes commercial law, public institutions, international trade agreements, infrastructure, and technology. We provide an overview of the various aspects and elements for assessing and creating a positive business environment.
Business Services
Businesses and enterprises often require assistance. Whether it is with tax registration, import/export documents or the development of a new business plan, there are a myriad of methods and means of providing support. We provide some information on various approaches to support business incubators, business services centers and individual business services providers.
U.S. Small Business Administration:
Use TechnologyTechnology can strengthen and enable business growth. Matching business needs with appropriate technology can result in improve efficiency, more strategic marketing and increased sales.
Finance GrowthBusinesses need money to grow. This link provides a variety of resources and support for financing business growth.
Manage EmployeesManaging human resources is a critical element of success. Effective job descriptions, hiring practices, and personnel polices are just a few aspects of managing employees.
LeadEffective leadership will ensure success.
Other Resources:
Free ResourcesA listing of free on-line resources available to small businesses.
NetworksInternational Network for SMEs website providing information to members and non-members on projects, trainings, events, and much more.
National Dialogue on EntrepreneurshipThe NDE site seeks to broaden the national discussion and bring attention to the field of entrepreneurship. Includes a link to subscribe to the newsletter.
Export Help DeskThe Export Helpdesk is an online service, provided by the European Commission, to facilitate market access for developing countries to the European Union. This free and user-friendly service provides relevant information required by developing country exporters interested in supplying the EU market.
My Own BusinessMy Own Business, Inc. is a nonprofit organization committed to helping people succeed in business. The course is presented by successful business owners who point out the common, avoidable mistakes.
Competitiveness
The objectives of competitiveness initiatives are to increase productivity and add value to industries and the overall economy. To create competitive advantage, firms, industries and economies must achieve and maintain an edge over market rivals. This advantage can be generated by focusing on product characteristics and business operations, such as uniqueness, quality, quantity, efficiency, productivity, asymmetric access to information, branding, advertising, good service, environmentally or socially valued standards (e.g., social marketing, fair trade practices) and others. Competitiveness initiatives employ a multitude of approaches to improve the competitive advantage of a country, region, industry, or value chain. By their nature, competitiveness initiatives encompass various methodologies including: clusters, value and/or supply chains, public-private dialogue, partnership or association building, information sharing, innovation and adding value, and workforce development initiatives. The objectives of any competitiveness initiative are to increase exports, go beyond selling commodities, add more value to production and exports and increase jobs, investment and income.
Other Competitiveness Resources:
Competitiveness and DevelopmentThis book demonstrates the importance of true and fair competition to sustainable development and an effective marketplace, touching on issues of globalization, consumer welfare, cartels and monopolies, and trade liberalization. Click on the link to the directed to the IDRC site to download or purchase the book.
Michael PorterMichael Porter is a leader in the development of the cluster competitiveness theory. Currently the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor for the Insitute for Strategy and Competitiveness at the Harvard Business School, Michael Porter has pioneered work in cluster analysis. Click here to be directed to a page with a list of his publications on the Insitution for Strategy and Competitiveness at the Harvard Business School.
Enterprise Finance
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are critical to a country's economic growth. Yet, SMEs regularly cite the lack of access to finance as a major restraint to growing their businesses. Large companies have commercial banks. Microenterprises have microcredit institutions. Yet, in many markets small and medium size companies do not meet established criteria for financial services either. In the World Bank's "World Business Environment Survey" more than 10,000 SMEs worldwide named financing constraints as the second most severe obstacle to their growth, while large firms on average placed access to finance as fourth.
Other USAID Programs Supporting Access to Finance:
Financial Sector Knowledge Sharing ProjectThe USAID’s Bureau for Economic Growth Agriculture and Trade (EGAT) created the Financial Sector Knowledge Sharing Project (FS Share) to collaborate with USAID missions to develop effective and efficient financial sector programs that increase access to financial services and develop well-functioning markets worldwide.
USAID Development Credit AuthorityThe USAID DCA program work supporting providing access to capital to business, individuals and local governments. By working with local banking institutions, the USAID DCA program is helping to provide access to financing to the missing middle and traditional overlooked clients.
USAID Global Development Alliance (GDA)Building and maintaining alliances are one of the key components in business development. The USAID Global Development Alliance (GDA) work to leverage growing private sector interest and resources in international development. Private sector partners can include foundations, multilateral corporations and community organizations.
USAID MicroLinks Financial Services ResourceMicroenterprises are a unique niche in enterprise development and play an important role in rural development, poverty alleviation and empowering women. Their needs are specific to their size and role. The USAID MicroLinks Financial Services Resources page provides comprehensive information on sources and approaches to micro-lending, as well as products and services.
Information and Communication Technology
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can have a positive effect on economic development and enterprise growth. The use of ICTs enables enterprises to connect to new markets and respond to changes in the market faster, by becoming more responsive to suppliers and buyers and more competitive in the global marketplace. The positive role that ICTs play in economic development is increasingly being realized and examined in the international development community. A variety of resources are provided below that examine the differing methods that can be used in targeting the ICT sector to spur enterprise growth as well as economic development as a whole.
"For more than forty years, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been able to draw on its experience in building capacity and on the technological strength of the United States to introduce a number of ground-breaking successes in applying Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to development."
Other ICT Resources:
USAID's ICT InitiativesThis website provides information on the special initiatives of USAID on information and communication technology.
The UN and ICT for DevelopmentThe Alliance responds to the need and demand for an inclusive global forum and platform for cross-sectoral policy dialogue on the use of ICT for enhancing the achievement of internationally agreed development goals, notably reduction of poverty.
Partnership on Measuring ICT for DevelopmentThis Partnership aims to accommodate and develop further the different initiatives regarding the availability and measurement of ICT indicators at the regional and international levels. It provides an open framework for coordinating ongoing and future activities, and for developing a coherent and structured approach to advancing the development of ICT indicators globally, and in particular in developing countries.
Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurs are innovators in their communities bringing new ideas that offer better services or products and provide an important impetus for further economic growth. However, the study of entrepreneurship and economic growth is relatively new, and a broad consensus has yet to emerge in the international community. There is no single definition of what constitutes entrepreneurial behavior, and there remains a lack of standard indicators upon which to compare entrepreneurship across countries. The area of entrepreneurship and innovation is an emerging topic for further study and research.
Other Resources Related to Innovation and Entrepreneurship:
Entrepreneurship.govIn his June "A New Beginning" speech in Cairo, President Obama announced that the U.S. will host a Summit on Entrepreneurship to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations, and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim-majority countries (MMC), including their minority populations, and Muslim communities around the world. This website provides further information on this exciting new initiative.
The World's Most Innovative Companies 2010Even in these tough times, surprising and extraordinary efforts are under way in businesses across the globe. From politics to technology, energy, and transportation; from marketing to retail, health care, and design, each company in the following article illustrates the power and potential of innovative ideas and creative execution.
Business EdgeThis new initiative of the IFC provides a range of management training products and services, specially designed for owners and managers of SMEs. It includes 36 different management workbooks in 5 different topics, namely: Marketing, Human Resources, Production & Operations, Finance & Accounting, and Productivity Skills.
Leading Institutions:
University of MarylandThe University of Maryland is one of the U.S.'s leading educational institutions and rank's 11th out of all public universities in the country. UMD is home to the renouned Robert H. Smith School of Business, which is home to prestigious centers such as the Center for Social Value Creation and the Center for International Business Education and Ressearch.
The Kauffman FoundationThe Kauffman Foundation works to further understand the phenomenon of entrepreneurship, to advance entrepreneurship education and training efforts, to promote entrepreneurship-friendly policies, and to better facilitate the commercialization of new technologies by entrepreneurs and others which have great promise for improving the economic welfare of the US.
Babson CollegeBabson College, located in Wellesley, Massachusetts, is recognized internationally for its entrepreneurial leadership in a changing global environment. The Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship is a hub for entrepreneurial activity at Babson. It is the Center’s mission to lead the global advancement of entrepreneurship education and practice through the development of teaching, research, and outreach initiatives that inspire entrepreneurial thinking and cultivate entrepreneurial leadership in all organizations and society. Babson college also produces the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor which measures economic indicators to determine the level of entrepreneurship and potential for economic growth.
MIT Legatum CenterThe Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship is a collaboration between Legatum and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in which Legatum has made a significant endowment towards the establishment of fellowships that will result in innovative businesses promoting sustainable economic growth in developing countries.
Entrepreneurship.orgThe Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and the U.S. Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration (ITA) have formed a new public-private partnership focused on leveraging best practices in entrepreneurial leadership to advance economic growth around the world. The goal of this partnership is to assist all nations in developing the environment to allow entrepreneurs to organize and operate a business venture, create wealth, and employ people.
Post-Conflict Environments
Economic growth in post conflict environments provides unique challenges and opportunities. Strategies for ensuring peace and security are inherently linked with economic, social and political development. The 2007 Guide to Economic Growth in Post-Conflict Countries was presented and discussed at length during the USAID Economic Growth Officers Workshop in October 2007.
Recommendations were made in seven areas: macroeconomic foundations, including both fiscal and monetary policy and institutions; employment generation; private-sector development, including both the private-sector enabling environment and enterprise development; agriculture; banking and finance; trade policy and institutions; and infrastructure.
