The financial support for SME's and their development role in Saudi Dissertation

The financial support for SME's and their development role in Saudi Arabia - Dissertation Example Recently, Saudi Arabian government has started to give importance to its SME sector in order to improve domestic competitiveness. In such context, research finding of this paper will help the policy makers to take their decisions more strategically. Very few researchers have tried to understand the problems of SMEs in Saudi Arabia in quantitative manner hence findings of this research paper will shed light on a much neglected area in literature regarding SMEs. SMEs in Saudi Arabia are facing problems regarding accessing financial support from financial organization and lack of talented human resource pool. Biased and un-cooperating government policy has also decreased the competitiveness of SMEs in Saudi Arabia. In this paper, the researcher has taken subjective measures instead of objective view to answer the research questions. Secondary data analysis on the basis of backed by accessing various types of secondary data sources such as books, academic journals, online journals etc. S imple mathematical and arithmetic measures are used in order to treat the data and extract valid information from the raw data. However, major limitation associated with this paper is its inability conduct the analysis by using complex predictive and inferential statistical techniques. Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Jen Magson who is the research method lecturer and has helped me immensely in preparing the research design for this research paper. Without the support of Amanda Smith who is EAP lecturer, I would not be able to complete this research paper hence I am grateful to these two lecturers for giving me the opportunity work on this project. It would never be possible for me to accomplish this project without their immense support and pedagogy. Table of Contents Table of Contents 4 1. Introduction 6 2. Literature Review 6 2.1 Small and Medium Enterprises 7 2.2 Financial Support for SMEs 7 2.3 Developmental Role of SMEs 8 2.4 Conclusion 9 3. Res earch Questions 9 4. Results, analysis & discussion 9 4.1. Methodology 9 4.2 Introduction 10 4.3 Qualitative Analysis 10 4.4 Quantitative Analysis 14 5. Conclusion & Recommendation 24 5.1 Limitation 25 Appendices 29 Appendix 1: Questionnaire 29 Words Count- 4978 List of Figures Figure No. Name of the Figure Page No. 1 Distribution of Age of Respondents 16 2 Business Segment of Respondents 17 3 Financial Support to Start Business 18 4 Number of Employees 19 5 Annual Turnover 20 6 Difficulties 21 7 Duration of Business 22 8 Response Distribution for Question 8 23 9 Response Distribution for Question 9 23 10 Response Distribution for Question 10 24 List of Tables Table No. Table Name Page No. 1 Distribution of Age of Respondents 15 1. Introduction Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the development of any economy. Port (2010) highlighted that the mushrooming of these small organizations therefore creates the desired multiplier impact on the level of employment as well as economic progress made in the country. Despite their importance, SMEs, however, lack the required financial support in order to expand in size and contribute more towards the economic progress of the country (Hertog, 2010). Isenberg (2011) has stressed on the fact that role of SME in developing economy increases in manifold manner for those countries where scope for other large and capital intensive industries is small. Szabo (2006) has pointed out that

Survey Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4

Survey - Essay Example A recommendation is therefore given that strategies should immediately employed to price match products in the online market. The internet market has grown considerably in the past couple of years. Statistics show that the number of online shoppers reached an all time high of about 178.5 million people in 2011. Recently, there have been proposals to the company to reconsider its online trading policies to boost its sales volume. Presently, the company does prices match its products online and neither does it offer their competitor’s online prices. Therefore, a research was carried out to determine whether the proposed strategy of price matching online products would be profitable to the company. The method of research used was questionnaire that was conducted online for a period of about a quarter of the fiscal year. Online shoppers from the United States (14 years and older) that visited the company’s websites were randomly selected to participate in the questionnaire. First, a pilot study was conducted on the online shoppers. This involved open-ended questions that placed no limit on the customer’s response. Questions in this study were general in nature like, what is their overall attitude to Wal-Mart customer relations policy. Later, a close-ended questionnaire was used to provide a better reflection of the public view. A maximum choice of five answers to each question was given. The questions were generally categorized into 4 sections each covering a unique field. The survey was voluntary and anonymous and no personal data was collected. There was an approximate response rate of 88% to the questionnaire from both prospective buyers and those who actually made online purchases. A complete breakdown of the responses is shows that the majority of respondents were in favor of the company providing price matching information. About 80% of the respondents indicated that they would buy more products if