In the last couple of years, entrepreneurship paradigms and conversations have shifted from starting up businesses to designing and implementing deliberate interventions, systems and structures that support businesses to grow and scale. Multiple studies show that businesses that grow and scale have stronger potential to deliver significant socio-economic impact particularly with respect to job creation, value addition and contribution to GDP. In Nigeria, micro businesses make up 99.8% of the country’s Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). According to the MSME survey released early 2019 by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), there has been an increase in the number of micro and small businesses with a decline in medium size businesses. This result suggests an increase in the number of startups without a corresponding increase in the number of businesses that have successfully transitioned or “scaled up”.

Startups are celebrated worldwide as being the backbone of developed and developing economies and this mindset has stimulated deliberate focus, intervention programmes and support to enable startups thrive with little or no attention being given to the long-term viability of the business in the post startup phase. With worldwide research showing that for significant economic impact to occur, there has to be intentional efforts directed at the post startup phase with emphasis on businesses scaling, there is a growing shift in thinking and mindset taking place globally with regards to the scale up concept.

This report details findings from our research evaluating scale ups in Nigeria to:

• Provide a scorecard on the scale-up efficiency of Nigerian companies;
• Identify enablers of business scalability; and
• Highlight the inhibitors of business scale that currently exist within the Nigerian business environment.

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