According to a study conducted by The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg Foundation, micro-companies are mostly not aware of the possibility of obtaining additional funds for the development of their businesses. In the past few years, only 18 percent of micro-companies applied for institutional support, and only 9 percent benefited from it . Why so few?
There are several reasons why micro-companies do not apply for institutional support. Half of the respondents simply don't feel the need to do it, indicating good condition of their company. It is alarming, however, that 14 percent of entrepreneurs didn't even know about this possibility, and 12 percent feel discouraged by the complicated bureaucracy.
Polish institutions do not satisfy the needs of micro-entrepreneurs, says Krzysztof Kaczmar, President of the Management Board of The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg Foundation. One third of the respondents point to the lack of financial support for the businesses, and every tenth expects more legal and tax consulting services or limitation of the bureaucracy.
EU subsidies - about the battle against bureaucrats
EU subsidies are one of the forms of supporting micro-companies. Although 33 percent of micro-companies, that is almost two times more than those which applied for support from Polish institutions, submitted an application for support from the EU, that interest still remains rather low. Good situation of a company (38%) was indicated as the main reason for not applying for a subsidy. However, complicated procedures and bureaucracy which were indicated by entrepreneurs almost two times more (23%) than in the case of Polish institutions turned out to be the largest obstacle. The level of difficulty of obtaining subsidies is best illustrated by the fact that only 11 percent of the micro-companies surveyed passed the procedure of obtaining them.
Moreover, the majority of companies applying for subsidies deem this procedure burdensome, while nearly every fifth of them have doubts as to its transparency. Nevertheless, 20 percent of the surveyed want to apply for EU financing in the five years to come. Why not more? It may result from the fact that applicants are uninformed. As much as 50% of the companies surveyed think that availability of information on possibilities of obtaining EU subsidies is insufficient. Enterprises which applied for such a support in the past but did not receive it declare much greater dissatisfaction with availability of information - it may be related to the belief that an application would not have been rejected if a company had obtained more detailed data on formal requirements. The reasons behind the negative assessment of information availability include perception of the application procedure as very bureaucratized.
A gift horse - should you really not look in its mouth?
Among the companies which have received support of any kind, opinions about the obtained help are mixed. Half of the respondents claim it was sufficient; however, as many as 44 percent of them are of a different opinion. Among the reasons quoted by them were e.g. bureaucracy which poses a lot of difficulty and insufficient amount of support. What is interesting, the Tax Office was much better assessed than ZUS (Social Insurance Institution) as far as their friendly attitude toward entrepreneurs is concerned. Micro-entrepreneurs expect support for their business mainly from government or local-government institutions (72 percent), banks and financial institutions (47 percent) as well as chambers of commerce (36 percent). They prefer to receive especially financial support (30 percent); however, every tenth of them would like to have access to tax and legal consulting services. Nearly as many micro-entrepreneurs claim that their situation would be better if there was smaller bureaucracy and lower costs of running a business.
