Success and Failure Factors for Micro and Small Businesses

The general aim of this work is to find out about the success factors of micro and small companies, identifying the characteristics of the managers, the operational practices and the factors that have contributed to the best results for these companies. In addition to the initial objectives, we study how micro and small companies are classified, their importance in the economic context, their strategic positioning and their problems. The various business success factors referenced in the literature are investigated, as are the characteristics of entrepreneurs, using questionnaires, interviews and observation as data collection tools. The factors investigated through the questionnaires were considered relevant to entrepreneurial success, but there must be others. They also found factors in the lowest-performing companies, which are considered to be factors of failure. The differentiator between success and failure is the way in which the managers and employees of these companies do things.