A Dissertation Submitted to the School of Business in Partial Fulfilment of the
Requirements for Award of the Degree of Masters of Business Administration -
Corporate Management (MBA) of the Mzumbe University.
Business skills training and technical assistance to SMEs are determinant factors
towards the growth of enterprises. In Tanzania, there are enterprises that still register
poor performance in terms of growth, profitability and sustainability despite the fact
that various institutions provide the required training and technical assistance to
entrepreneurs. To find out whether business skills training and the provision of
technical assistance is significantly important towards the growth and development
of micro enterprises and to determine what inhibits their performance, this study
assessed the contribution of training and technical assistance provided by SIDO to
micro entrepreneurs, using SMEs. Specifically, it analysed the skills and benefits
obtained as well as business profiles of entrepreneurs who received training and
technical assistance, and identified constraints limiting the application of obtained
entrepreneurship skills to SMEs. A cross sectional study design was employed in
obtaining data collected using key informant through interviews and focussed group
discussions. The study involved 90 respondents out of which 73 had received a loan;
training as well as technical assistance while 17 had received a loan only.
Both descriptive and inferential statistics using the Statistical Package for Social
Science (SPSS) were used to analyze data. It was found that most training provided
by SIDO were on entrepreneurship, business management and provision of technical
assistance on marketing, product labeling, and selection of machine and business
advice as a whole. Most beneficiaries of the training and loan were married
individuals aged between 40-49 years. Training and technical assistance had positive
influence on business performance although it had no significant impact on asset
accumulation. The study recommends that micro-entrepreneurs should make use of
the skills they obtain from institutions like SIDO and seek for adequate financial
support to establish their business and that these various supporting institutions
should focus on specific skills development of these SMEs which will certainly
increase the performance in business.