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KNOWLEDGE FOR POLICY

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Projects and activities | Last updated: 20 Jan 2025

Monitoring SME Performance in the EU

The Competence Centre on Composite Indicators and Scoreboards (CC-COIN) is collaborating with the Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs of the European Commission (DG GROW) on the following work streams.

About

Monitoring SME in Europe decorative
(© European Union)

The "Monitoring SME Performance in the EU" project collectively contributes to a deeper understanding of the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) sector in the EU, providing policymakers with essential data and insights to foster a supportive business environment that promotes the growth, competitiveness, and development of SMEs.

While each work stream sheds light on distinct aspects of the SME sector, together they form a comprehensive framework that highlights the complex dynamics at play. 

By pioneering innovative indicators and methodologies, these projects advance SME research and policy-making in the EU, ultimately driving a more evidence-based approach to policy-making.

Structural Business Statistics (SBS) nowcasting and forcasting

CC-COIN compiles annually a dataset on structural indicators of SMEs, which informs the annual SME Performance Review

The initiative involves now-casting and forecasting key SME Structural Business Statistics —number of enterprises, number of people employed, and value added—leveraging different data sources such as Eurostat, National Statistical Offices, AMECO forecasts, Short-Term Statistics, and National Accounts. 

Each year, the project estimates three new data points for each performance variable, offering a highly detailed breakdown by country, enterprise size class, NACE 2-digit activity, and industrial ecosystem, thus providing data and insights at different levels of analyses for both policy-makers and researchers.    

Small Business Act (SBA) scoreboard

The SBA scoreboard is a key tool for monitoring the implementation of the Small Business Act across the EU-27. 

The team is in charge of the annual update and further development of the scoreboard. Implementation of the SBA is monitored across ten dimensions:

  1.  ‘Entrepreneurship’
  2. ‘Second chance’
  3. ‘Think small first’ and ‘Responsive administration’
  4. ‘State aid & public procurement’
  5. ‘Access to finance’
  6. ‘Single market’
  7. ‘Skills and innovation’
  8. ‘Environment’,
  9. ‘Internationalisation’
  10. ‘Digitalisation’

By tracking the implementation of the SBA across ten dimensions, this work stream is helping to identify areas where EU countries need to improve their support for SMEs, and where best practices can be shared and replicated.

The indicators dataset can be downloaded from https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/60634

The SBA scoreboard can be explored via the COIN explorer
 

SME Twin Transition Monitor

CC-COIN has developed a new composite indicator for the monitoring of the twin transition in SMEs. 

The monitor provides an assessment of SME readiness for the digital and environmental transitions, including their resilience capabilities, which are crucial for their success in this change process, and to ensure their long-term competitiveness.  

As part of this project, the team is also exploring unconventional data opportunities , including for example unstructured and satellite data. These data sources are being leveraged to develop ad-hoc indicators that are strategically relevant for enterprises' competitiveness.

The SME Twin transition monitor can be explored on the COIN website (available soon).

Analyses of the enterprise population

The team runs in-depth analyses to enhance the understanding of the enterprise population using micro-level data sources, such as the World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) and Orbis. 

These analyses include:

  • studying the effects of inflation on the SME definition threshold
  • estimating the size and characteristics of the midcaps population across the EU

The projects are meant to fill knowledge gaps in the understanding of the enterprise population, and have important implications for policymakers seeking to support the growth and development of SMEs and mid-sized enterprises.
 

Latest knowledge from this Project