Survey on
“Factors of Business Success”
(FOBS)
ISTAT/Eurostat/OECD Seminar on Entrepreneurship Indicators
Rome, December 6-7, 2006
Hartmut Schrör, Eurostat
hartmut.schroer@ec.europa.eu
Contents
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Project
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Data
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Background
Participants
Methodology
Questionnaire
Dissemination and publication
Selected results
Conclusions
Background

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Successful data collection on Business Demography
Business Demography: births, survivals, deaths, and
related employment
Further questions
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What are the factors determining the success / survival of
newly born enterprises?
What obstacles do newly born enterprises face?
What support to them is most useful?
What is the profile of the successful entrepreneur?
=> FOBS project
Participants
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15 countries
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7 EU-15 Member States: Denmark, France, Italy,
Luxembourg, Austria, Portugal, Sweden
6 New Member States: Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia
2 Acceding Countries: Bulgaria and Romania
Eurostat: project co-ordination, aggregated results
Commission DG “Enterprise and Industry”: Financing
OECD
Methodology
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Target population
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Enterprises that were born in 2002 and survived for 3 years,
until the time of the survey in 2005.
Sub-population of enterprises that are still managed by the
founder => profile of the successful entrepreneur
Samples drawn from populations of newly born
enterprises identified in business registers using the
business demography methodology
Attempt at identifying survivals into the present
Variety in sampling schemes and grossing-up methods
Questionnaire (1/2)
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Start-up conditions
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Motivation for start-up
Financing
Difficulties at start-up
Support and advice
Entrepreneur’s characteristics
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Education
Experience managing an enterprise
Branch experience
Gender
Age
Citizenship
Questionnaire (2/2)
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Present situation
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Employment, turnover
Co-operation, networking
Difficulties developing the enterprise
Future plans and expectations
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Future of the enterprise (continuing, selling, closing down)
Development of employment, turnover, investments
Contents

Project

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

Data



Background
Participants
Methodology
Questionnaire
Dissemination and publication
Selected results
Conclusions
Dissemination
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Datasets released on Eurostat website
http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat
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Data
Industry, Trade and Services
Horizontal View
Special topics of structural business statistics
Factors of Business Success
Metadata in SDDS format
Dissemination
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Complete aggregated datasets
“EU” aggregate of 10 countries: CZ, DK, IT, LT, LU,
AT, SK, SE, BG and RO
Excel sheets with selected indicators
Publication
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Statistics in Focus “The Profile of the Successful
Entrepreneur”
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-NP-06-029/EN/KS-NP-06-029-EN.PDF
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12 pages in English, German, French
Indicators referring to entrepreneur characteristics
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Age, gender, education, experience, citizenship
Experience running an enterprise
Start-up difficulties
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Administration
Contacts Financing Alone as Pricing goodsOutstanding Finding
w ith
entrepreneur
invoices
premises
customers
No experience
One experience
Finding
suppliers
Suitable InformationBacking from
personnel technology
family
More than one experience
EU None
EU One
EU 2 or more
No advice
needed
No access to
any relevant
advice
Financial
institution
Organisations
specialising
in business
start-ups
Unemployment
administration
Professional
consultants
Professional
acquaintances
Training course
for entrepreneur
Family
and friends
Experience running an enterprise
Sources of advice
Sources of advice (%)
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Branch experience
Judgement of profitability
Judgement of profitability (%)
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Very good
Good
EU No
Barely sufficient
EU Yes
Poor
Age
Innovation
Innovation in the enterprise (%)
18
16
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
Product innovation
EU Less than 30 years
Process innovation
Organisational innovation
EU Between 30 and 39 years
Marketing innovation
EU 40 years and over
Gender
Labour Force Survey vs. FOBS
100
80
60
40
20
0
LFS
Females
FOBS
Males
Gender
Share in NACE activities
100
80
60
40
20
0
Industry
Construction Wholesale and Hotels and
retail trade
restaurants
Males
Transport,
Financial
Real estate,
storage and intermediation renting and
communication
business
activities
(excluding
74.15)
Females
Gender
Previous occupation
Previous occupation (%)
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Employee
Running another
enterprise
Student
EU Females
Unemployed and
available to labour market
EU Males
No gainful activity and not
available to labour market
Education
Judgement of profitability
Judgement of profitability (%)
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Very good
Good
Barely sufficient
Poor
EU Primary and lower secondary education - levels 1-2 (ISCED 1997)
EU Upper secondary education - level 3 (ISCED 1997)
EU Post-secondary non-tertiary education - level 4 (ISCED 1997)
EU Tertiary education - levels 5-6 (ISCED 1997)
Employee size class at enterprise birth
Expected development - increase
Expected development of business activity by ISC - FOBS1 (%)
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Increase of
turnover
EU Zero
Increase of number
of employees
Increase of variety
of goods and services for sale
EU Between 1 and 9
Increase of
profitability
EU 10 or more
Conclusions
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Successful project
Further analysis of results
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Aggregated dataset at Eurostat
Microdata analysis ? …possibly using clustering technique ?
What next?
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Possible follow-up project
 More focus on particular subjects
 Inclusion of entrepreneurship indicators
Thank you!