Archive:Factors of business success
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The survey on factors of business success is a follow-up to the data collection exercise for business demography. While the business demography project provides data on enterprise births, survivals, deaths and related changes in employment, the purpose of this survey is to shed more light on factors that support or hamper the success of newly born enterprises.
Information is presented on the motivations for starting-up a business, barriers and risks encountered during the first years of existence, the current situation of the enterprise, and business plans for future development.
The population surveyed in this project was enterprises born in 2002, that had survived to 2005, and that were still managed by their founders at the time of the survey. Data are available from 15 countries that participated on a voluntary basis.
Main findings
- Experience of having worked in the activity and in running an enterprise help, but are not essential, in becoming a successful entrepreneur.
- Entrepreneurs consider contacts with customers and administrative problems as their main start-up difficulties.
- Dealing with outstanding invoices to customers is one of the start-up difficulties more often perceived as problematic for men than for women; men are more optimistic about the profitability of their enterprise.
- The degree to which entrepreneurs consider their enterprises to be innovative increases with their educational level.
- The most often-cited motivations for starting-up an enterprise are the desire to be one’s own boss and the prospect of making more money.
Data sources and availability
There are seven tables covering the same countries, variables, and activity (NACE) breakdowns, broken down by characteristics of the enterprise or the entrepreneur.
- Enterprise characteristics:
- size class (employees) in the year of birth (2002);
- size class (employees) in the year 2005.
- Entrepreneur characteristics:
- age;
- gender;
- activity;
- experience managing an enterprise;
- education.
See also
- Access to finance
- Business demography statistics
- Entrepreneurship indicators
- Structural business statistics - theme navigation page
- Structural business statistics introduced - background article
Further Eurostat information
Publications
- Innovation as a Factor in Business Success - Statistics in focus 15/2008
- The profile of the successful entrepreneur - Statistics in focus 29/2006