Local leaders believe that high-growth companies are critical for job creation. Where are the programs to support them?
Last summer, our team interviewed more than 250 local leaders to better understand the characteristics of local entrepreneurship ecosystems. Many of these people spoke passionately about the importance of high-growth businesses.
“Companies that can scale up have the potential to employ a huge amount of people not only locally, but also globally,” a Middle East policymaker told us.
“New jobs are going to come from younger, growing companies,” the leader of a European organization said. “Established companies are not really hiring.”
Overall, 75 percent of the leaders we surveyed believed that fast growing small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were important for job creation in their cities. Unfortunately, that is only the first part of the story
The High-Growth Paradox
Although most leaders recognize the importance of high-growth firms, less than one in five report that there are programs to support these businesses in their local cities or regions, as the chart above demonstrates. This paradox is a challenge for leaders across the world. In the next months, we will publish examples of innovative programs for high-growth SMEs to help more cities resolve it. If you know of examples of programs that have successfully supported fast-growth firms, please send us more information about them at insight [at] endeavor.org.
Contributed by Rhett Morris.
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