Performance Measurement Framework for Business Development Services: Progress Report on the Outreach and Market Development Indicators Survey

This progress report is part of a global effort to develop a common performance assessment framework (PMF) for business development services (BDS) for small enterprises (SEs). It documents the results of the PMF field research survey on outreach and market development indicators.

The report highlights that:

• Market penetration for both programs and markets is generally low;
• Awareness about BDS in many markets is high;
• Price appears to be less important than other factors in the market;
• Many programs represent a significant proportion of the total market among their target customers.

The paper concludes that further research is required into:

• Developing appropriate sampling procedures to ensure that data accurately represents a given SE population where size and characteristics of the SE population are unknown;
• Developing survey methodology to better capture the non-fee for-service part of BDS markets, particularly the informal transactions;
• Using price information to improve knowledge about the status of a market and interactions between the program and market.