SME Research

SMEs (small and medium enterprises) are generally defined as businesses employing fewer than 250 people.  Also known as SMBs (small and medium businesses), these organisations are of increasing interest to companies with business-to-business offerings.

Why Research Small Businesses?

SMEs/SMBs are of growing interest to b2b companies for a number of reasons, including:

• Winning business from the very largest corporations is more competitive and difficult than ever before – markets are more international, margins are under more pressure, and requirements more rigid
• Delivering against many smaller contracts can be as lucrative, and lower risk, than relying on a small number of very large contracts
• The spread of the Internet provides a cheap and simple route to market that makes delivering to small companies more economical than it was 10 years ago
• The spread of the Internet means that SMEs/SMBs are more easily identifiable than ever before
• The development of business-to-business segmentation techniques makes targeting small- and medium-sized businesses simpler and more cost-effective than was previously the case
• Small- and medium-sized business represent the vast majority of businesses in any economy in number: for example, 99.82% of US businesses and 99.87% of UK businesses

How B2B International Can Help

B2B International provides solutions to companies looking to extract more value from the SMB/SME audience: We frequently segment populations of SMBs on the basis of their needs, enabling our clients to target with the appropriate offering in terms of product, price, place and promotion; We size SMB markets throughout the world; We conduct qualitative research into the needs, desires and ‘hot buttons’ of SMBs.

Throughout all of these studies, we constantly bear in mind that we are researching a sophisticated target audience whose knowledge typically spans all areas of the business.

To find out how B2B International can help you harness the opportunities offered by SMBs/SMEs, contact our SMB Research Team.