A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Master of Business Administration in Corporate Management (MBA-CM) of Mzumbe University
The general objective of the study was to examine the influence of business loans to SMEs performance in Tanzania. Specific research objectives were; to found out if the capital loans provided by banks are effectively utilized by the SMEs, to investigate if SMEs with the help of the loans obtained from the banks achieve significant production level, and to investigate whether loans to SMEs from the banks actually lead to high competiveness.
The study applied a case study design whereby NBC was a case study. The study conducted in Dar es Salaam. The population of the study was SMEs clients of NBC. The study involved a sample of 60 respondents. The researcher used simple random sampling in selecting sample. The study applied primary and secondary data. Data collection tools were questionnaire, interview and documentation. The data were managed as soft copies in the computer. The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was applied to analyze data.
The findings of the study show that business loans have the following influences: purchases of raw materials, production purposes, investment purposes and achieving production goals. Others include: production level increased, increase in quality of products, increase in quantity of products and increase in innovation. Also business loans were found to be important because; increase in sales, increasing market awareness, increasing market share and increase in competitiveness. Based on the findings the study recommends improvement of loan provision status so that more SMEs should benefit and improve their business performance.
The researcher really hopes that findings from this study shall be of practical use to NBC Ltd, Dar es Salaam.