The Agency for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses in the Ministry of Economy: Businesses that received services from ‘Ma’of’ centers as part of “Business Initiators”, are currently establishing businesses at a rate 12% higher than the period before the Corona, and a rate 24% higher than during the Corona!
5,000 female and male entrepreneurs participated in the entrepreneurship week: high demand was registered for lectures in the areas of digital marketing, especially the creation of Reels videos, Kanba WhatsApp, which indicates a growing trend of growing independent entrepreneurs, who do not employ employees and perform services, such as marketing, independently
From satisfaction surveys conducted by the Small and Medium Business Agency among entrepreneurs who received its assistance services:
- About 5,000 entrepreneurs apply every year to the Small and Medium Business Agency in order to receive assistance in setting up a business
- The rate of establishing businesses from these inquiries, in the period before the corona virus, was 41 percent
- During the Corona period, the establishment rate dropped to 37 percent, a decrease of 9% compared to the rate of business establishment before the Corona
- The rate of business establishment after the corona virus increased by 12% over the rate before the corona virus and a 24% increase compared to the corona virus period
- 59 percent of the entrepreneurs who set up businesses after receiving assistance from the outside indicated that they would not have set up the business without the assistance, or that the performance of the business would have been less good without the assistance. This rate rose to 60 percent during the Corona and 70 percent after the Corona
The Agency for Small and Medium Businesses helps every year about 5,000 entrepreneurs who apply to Ma’of Centers (the field bodies of the Agency for Business) who wish to start a business.
Ma’ouaf’s assistance focuses on helping in building a business plan and understanding the meaning of building a business, improving business operating and management capabilities, assistance in submitting applications for financing, and more.
In order to enable continuous improvement of Ma’of’s services, the business agency conducts, on a frequent basis, satisfaction surveys among the entrepreneurs who received the assistance services. The current review focuses on three periods in flight activity: the period before the corona crisis, the period of the corona crisis, and the period after the corona crisis.
In the survey, Ma’uf customers were asked whether they started a business as a result of Ma’uf’s assistance. It can be seen in Figure 1 that approximately 46 percent answered that after the corona virus they established a business following the aid, 13 percent were planning or in the process of establishing it, and another 8 percent answered that they had a business before reaching the flight, but came to the flight to improve performance and learn how to run the business more correctly. Only 33 percent answered that they have not started a business and do not plan to start one.[1] It can be seen that during the Corona period, entrepreneurs were less likely to set up businesses (only 37 percent set up a business following participation), most likely due to a fear that the Corona crisis is not a good time to set up a business. Before the corona, the rate of entrepreneurs who started businesses was 41 percent, lower than it was after the corona. So you can see here a process of improvement over time.
Chart 1: Did you start a new business following your participation in the program?
Another question we asked the entrepreneurs who started businesses was about the contribution of the program to the establishment of the business. As can be seen in Figure 2, most of the entrepreneurs think that they would have established a business even if they had not participated in the program, but the performance of the business was less good. 25 percent claim that they would not have established the business if they had not participated in the program. It can be seen in the answers of the participants that there has been an improvement in this area over the years.
Chart 2: Would you have started the business if you had not participated in the program?