A survey on Finnish SMEs investment - Thesis Example

46 4.12 Findings of Secondary Survey……………………………………. 47 4. ANALYSIS………………………………………………………… 52 5.1 Interpretation of SME’s Investment Policy………………………… 54 5.2 Analysis of SME’s Employment Strategy…………………………. 55 5. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………….. 56 6. SOURCES…………………………………………………………. 59 List of Tables Page No Table 1.

No of Each Type of Firms in Finland’s Economy in 2009 7 Table 2. Total Turnover of the Four Types of Firms in 2009 8 Table 3. Comparison of Finnish SMEs Facts with corresponding data average of the EU countries in 2004, 2005 5 Table 4: SME’s Investment Performance in the past one year 26 Table 5: Future Investment Plan of Finnish SMEs for next one year 28 Table 6: SMEs opinion regarding the factors which could limit their investment and growth 31 Table 7: Preference of the SMEs in directing their Investment Projects towards specific Aims 34 Table 8: SMEs Employment Performance in the past one year 36 Table 9: SME’s Plan of Employment during next one year 38 Table 10: SME’s Opinion about the importance of Regulatns in influencing the Firm’s Grwth and Operations 40 Table 11: SMEs Sales Performance over the past one year 42 Table 12: Future Sales Plan of Finnish SMEs for next one year 43 Table 13: SMEs Debt Performance during the past one year 44 Table 14: Future Debt Plan of Finnish SMEs for next one year 46 Table 15: The Role of SMEs in the Finland Economy in 1991 47 Table 16: Number of SMEs in Finland according to Firm Size and Turnover in 2003 47 Table.

According to the Business Register of Statistics of Finland, in 2002 the country’s economy was home to 226,600 business enterprises (excepting those related to agriculture). The total turnover of these organizations was EUR 274 billion and they provided employment to 1,315,000 persons in the economy. Out of this total, 99.7% of the firms could be categorized as SMEs, which accounted for 52% of the gross turnover of the industrial sector and employed 61.5 % of the total working force of the economy.

Among the total number of business enterprises, 40% were owned by self-employed entrepreneurs (OECD, 2005, p.213). The Federation of the Finnish Enterprises conducted a survey and found that there were 263, 759 business enterprises in Finland’s economy (excluding agriculture, forestry and fishing). They classified them into four categories according to their number of employees and noted the number of firms under each category. They also surveyed the total turnover and the number of employees of each of the four classes of firms.

According to the Report of the European Commission Enterprise and Industry (ECEI) regarding Finland’s business scenario, there are about 36 SMEs present in the economy for every 1000 citizens. In comparison, other countries of the European Union (EU) have an average of 40 SMEs per 1000 inhabitants in their economies. In Finland, the micro firms and the small enterprises employ a comparatively lower number of people than their counterparts in the EU countries.