Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy, employing nearly 60% of workers and contributing almost 40% to the nation’s value-added output. Accounting for 34,752,434 companies, 99.9% of all American companies are small businesses. However, micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the U.S. are only half as productive as large companies, a stark contrast to the 60% productivity ratio seen in other advanced economies, according to research by my colleagues at the McKinsey Global Institute. This gap in productivity is equivalent to 5.4% of GDP, making it crucial to boost U.S. competitiveness in a shifting global market, writes Kweilin Ellingrud in Forbes.
Source: McKinsey

Time to think big to close America’s small business productivity gap