Panorama view of Innovation in Brazilian Small Businesses

Abstract

The ALI Program of the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (SEBRAE) has monitored over 150,000 small businesses throughout Brazil over the last few years. Within this setting, this article aims to demonstrate the panorama of innovation and management of Brazilian micro and small businesses (MSBs) that were in the initial phase of the ALI program. The data collected, between the years of 2015 and 2016, allowed to assess the average of points in each of the thirteen dimensions of the Innovation Radar (IR) and the eight dimensions of the Excellence Management Model (EMM). The analysis of the 21 dimensions was performed in a sample of 27,422 small businesses from all over Brazil, which was extracted from the Management and Monitoring System of the ALI - SistemAli Program of Sebrae. Regarding IR results, four dimensions stand out as their means are higher than the others: Brand (3.1), Platform (2.9), Offer (2.7), and Client Relationship (2.7). Besides, the results of the Excellence Management Model (EMM) show that Brazilian MSBs still need to improve, since no dimension evaluated has reached the average value of the scale.