Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
Small enterprises, big productivity gaps
Small business | Productivity | Economy
May 20, 2024 – Micro-, small, and medium-size enterprises (MSMEs) are critical to the global economy, accounting for 90 percent of all businesses, yet they are less productive than large companies in emerging and advanced economies. The productivity gap varies among countries, Olivia White, a senior partner and a director of the McKinsey Global Institute, and coauthors explain. In Kenya, for example, MSMEs are 6 percent as productive as large companies, representing a 94 percent productivity gap. Among advanced economies, MSMEs in the United Kingdom have the narrowest gap in productivity, at 16 percent.
To read the report, see “A microscope on small businesses: Spotting opportunities to boost productivity,” May 2, 2024.
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Visual form
Multi-panel image sequence.
Layout / body structure
The page is arranged as a grid of country small multiples, with emerging economies across the top rows and advanced economies across the bottom rows. Read panel by panel from left to right, using the shared legend on the right and the average markers at the left edge.
What is being compared
It compares MSME productivity with large-company productivity across countries, separating MSMEs in emerging economies from MSMEs in advanced economies.
Measurement system
The main measure is productivity relative to large-company productivity, expressed as a percentage, with a percentage-point gap shown in parentheses above each panel. Gray marks the large-company benchmark and the colored block marks MSME productivity.
Visible structure inside the graphic
Each country panel shows a gray benchmark square and a colored MSME square connected by a diagonal guide. The colored MSME value is printed inside the square, and the productivity gap is printed above the panel, while the grid makes it easy to compare one country against the emerging- and advanced-economy averages.
Main takeaway from the visual
The chart shows that MSME productivity sits far below large-company productivity almost everywhere, and the shortfall is widest across the emerging-economy panels rather than the advanced-economy ones.
Key standout values or extremes
The emerging-economy average is 29, while the advanced-economy average is 60. Kenya is at 6 and Nigeria at 12 on the low end, while the UK reaches 84 and Israel 69 on the high end among the advanced-economy panels.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a static chart image with no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart image is the full visual on this page.