Towards Understanding Factors that hinder The Sustainable Growth of Gambian-owned SMEs

Sammanfattning: Our study aims to establish facts not fictions regarding micro and macro factors affectingthe sustainable growth of small and medium size enterprises that are owned by Gambiansin the Gambia. The life cycle of a business demonstrates how entrepreneurs turn ideas intostartups that go through a survival stage which they later transform into a rapid growthstage until they reach the maturity stage where they can either diversify or start whole newventures. Growing up in the Gambia, we have seen how so many Gambians will start asmall or medium size business and within a short period of time mostly, (one or twoyears) will have their business ventures running at a loss and quit operations. Only ahandful of Gambian entrepreneurs have established SMEs that have gone through all thedifferent stages of a successful business life cycle and stayed in business for over twodecades. On the contrary, the Gambian business environment is seen as a perfectopportunity to exploit for so many non-Gambian entrepreneurs who originate from theneighbouring countries like Senegal, Guinea, Mali, and Nigeria. These non-Gambianentrepreneurs usually invest in SMEs and within a few years of their operations, theirventures become highly profitable, attain growth, and sustainably maintain their grip onthe Gambian market. Previous research is filled with general issues that affect thesustainable growth of SMEs in the Gambia and does not distinguish between Gambianand non-Gambians SMEs. There is limited research to show specifically why non-Gambian SMEs are performing better than Gambian SMEs. To make sense of all theseissues, we embarked on this research to find answers that can trigger the beginning ofunderstanding why Gambian-owned SMEs struggle to attain sustainable growth.With the application of qualitative research techniques and well-planned researchapproach, we were able to include some Gambian SMEs industry players in our studiesand collected data that led us to attain some level of understanding why Gambian ownedSMEs struggle to attain sustainable growth. In our findings, we realized that 80% of ourrespondents do not have the required level of skills and knowledge needed for anentrepreneur to succeed in business. This as a result has made necessity-basedentrepreneurship the prevailing approach to business for a large majority of our researchparticipants. In addition, the low level of skills makes it very cumbersome for theseentrepreneurs to withstand other challenges they face in the macro environment, thus theirinability to sustain their ventures.