Business Development Services: An Experiment of MSMEs in Central and Lusaka Provinces in Zambia

Micro, Small and Micro Enterprises (MSMEs) play an important economic role in many countries. In Zambia they are faced with the threat of failure with past statistics indicating that three out five fail within the first few months and majority of them fail after five years in operations. This study sought to investigate the business development services (management skills and practices) provided to MSMEs, who is providing better services, the impact of training on the business performance, the benefits of training and the business development services needed by MSMEs. The number of MSMEs operating after five years is declining and majority of them operate between one to five years. MSMEs who have undergone training have received business support in the following areas; access to finance, training and technical assistance, market access and others. Apart from these they have benefited in terms of improved strategic, operational and technical skills. The research concludes that providing training in management skills and practices improves the business performance of MSMEs and that there is a gap in terms of performance and practice between trained and untrained MSMEs.