Flash Eurobarometer 421 (Internationalisation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises)

Attitude of small and medium-sized enterprises towards import and export activities.<br>Topics: awareness of the Enterprise Europe Network; activities of the company in the last three years inside or outside the EU: exports to other countries, imports from other countries, cooperation with partners based abroad for research and development purposes, work as a subcontractor for a company based abroad, use of a subcontractor based abroad, investment in a company based abroad; export activities or considerations; companies already exporting products or services were asked: significance of each of the following difficulties: high delivery costs, ignorance of the applicable rules, insufficient security of payments from other countries, complicated or costly foreign taxation, lack of language skills, specificity of products, costs from resolving complaints and disputes cross-border, lack of specialized staff, identifying business partners abroad, large financial investment, ignorance where to find information about the potential market; companies not yet exporting products or services were asked the aforementioned issues plus: complicated administrative procedures; countries to which company exported in 2014; percentage of the company´s sales in 2014 coming from: own country, EU countries, countries outside the EU; import activities or considerations; significance of each of the following difficulties with regard to importing products or services: high delivery costs, ignorance of the applicable rules, lack of language skills, lack of specialized staff, identifying business partners abroad, complicated administrative procedures, ignorance where to find information about potential suppliers, controlling order quality; countries from which company imported in 2014; availability of the following services: website presenting products or services, online ordering, online payment; most helpful measures to engage in business abroad.

Demography: information about the company: number of employees, year of establishment, independent or part of national or international group, kind of sold products or services and target group; number of employees in January 2008; number of employees by end of the company’s first year of operation; change in number of employees since 2008; change in number of employees since the company’s first year of operation; overall change in number of employees; development of turnover since January 2008 (in percent); development of turnover since end of the company’s first year of operation (in percent); total turnover in 2014.

Additionally coded was: respondent ID; country; NACE-Code; nation group; weighting factor.