More than 90 percent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are optimistic about the future, according to a report on behaviors of SMEs released by Renmin University of China on April 22.
 

 

More than 90 percent of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are optimistic about their future, according to a report on behaviors of SMEs released by Renmin University of China on April 22.

The report showed that Chinese SMEs are concentrated in economically developed cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Communications, software and information technology, and manufacturing and retail are the top three sectors for SMEs.
 

The report consists of four parts: business environment, management and talent, overall operation, and basic development conditions.
 

It is based on data compiled from 2.45 million corporate users on the platform Jingoal. The data is concrete and microscopic, encompassing the frequency of employee training, attendance, work hours and turnover rate. The report compensates for deficiencies of data analysis at the microscopic level and interprets behaviors of SMEs from different perspectives.

According to the report, 27.66 percent of the SMEs examined have a history of more than 10 years, and 65.43 percent train their employees more than 10 times every year. Employee relations management and performance management are two major difficulties for human resources personnel.
 

"The report divides SMEs based on their staff size, revenues and total assets. The standard varies from industry to industry. Excluding the self-employed, the staff size ranges from 300 to 2,000 employees, and the revenues and total assets range from 20 to 200 million yuan ($30.9 million)," said Xu Shiyong, a professor from the School of Labor and Human Resources at Renmin University.
 

Studies of SMEs will be conducive to easing employment pressure, promoting technical innovation and boosting market development, Xu said, adding that SMEs currently need to further improve their management and systems.

Yang Weiguo, dean of the School of Labor and Human Resources at Renmin University, said that research on behaviors of individual SMEs can reveal possible changes at the macroeconomic level to provide more valuable help for SMEs in the Internet age.

"In the context of the ‘new normal,’ SMEs will function as a new engine for national economic growth and play an increasingly important role therein," said Zhao Weidong, director of the Institute for Studies of SMEs at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

It is vital to discover relations from data and indicators, thereby finding rules. In future studies, attention should be paid to data sources and analysis to make them more relevant to the needs of SMEs, Zhao said.

Wang Lixin, a professor from the School of Economics and Management at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, pointed to the need to integrate data vertically, which would reveal patterns in the industry chain. The report is valuable because it will finally present a model that allows investors to evaluate more than 2.4 million enterprises and find those most worthy of investment, Wang said.
 

The report will be published on a quarterly basis to inform SMEs of macroeconomic data while helping them roll out targeted measures and bolster the economy. 

 

 

Niu Dongjie is a reporter at the Chinese Social Sciences Today.