Competitiveness is the biggest problem for the smallest entrepreneurs. This arises from the responses to the question about the biggest challenges in business that we posed to Lider’s subscribers. An anonymous survey conducted from February 8 to 13 received responses from 44 micro-entrepreneurs, who have fewer than ten employees and revenues of up to two million euros. More than half of the respondents (56 percent) circled ‘inability to achieve higher prices’ as one of three possible answers. When the problem of rising input prices is added as the second challenge (42 percent), it is clear that this largest and most sensitive category of entrepreneurs lives in the scissors of high inflation and ruthless competition, and we must also add the chronic lack of capital – which consultants emphasize more than the entrepreneurs themselves complain about it.
Labor is only the next problem in importance (37 percent), and even a third do not feel this problem at all. The reason is likely that small companies are not labor-intensive, and the surveyed entrepreneurs employ an average of three and a half workers. Therefore, their main channel for finding workers is: personal acquaintances (44 percent), job advertisements (30 percent), HZZ (19 percent), and private agencies (14 percent), while only one of the surveyed entrepreneurs responded that they employ foreign workers.
Alongside labor, the problem of high taxes and other contributions to the state (one of three key challenges for 37 percent of respondents) is highlighted, followed by slow administration (26 percent) and rigging jobs in public procurement (19 percent). Nine percent highlight market loss and interest as problems, while seven percent circled delays in supply chains due to bypassing Suez. From individual responses, it is evident that entrepreneurs are also troubled by the judiciary, with the well-known story of lengthy disputes being compounded by the problem of unfair judgments with high interest rates.
