Despite potentially tremendous benefits, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lag in the digital transformation. Emerging technologies, as diverse as they are, offer a range of applications for them to improve performance and overcome the size-related limitations they face in doing business. However, SMEs must be better prepared, and stakes are high. SMEs make the most of the industrial fabric in many countries and regions, they create jobs (most jobs sometimes) and are the cement of inclusive and sustainable societies.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that scale up have long raised policy interest for their extraordinary potential in terms of job creation, innovation, competitiveness and economic growth. Yet, little is known about which firms could effectively become scalers, and what policies could effectively promote SME growth.

The new OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Outlook presents the latest trends in performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and provides a comprehensive overview of business conditions and policy frameworks for SMEs and entrepreneurs. This year’s edition provides comparative evidence on business dynamism, productivity growth, wage gaps and export trends by firm size across OECD countries and emerging economies.

This book explores how government policy can boost innovation by improving the environment for entrepreneurship and small firm development and increasing the innovative capacities of enterprises.