This study explores the factors that limit the long-term survival and development
of micro and survivalist enterprises of a selected informal sector in Durban,
KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). Micro and survivalist enterprises play an important role in
the South African economy, but despite their significance, several studies have
shown that these enterprises fail within their first five years. The high failure rate
is partially attributed to lack of support from external sources of support as well
as the enterprises’ own internal weaknesses.
The study was descriptive, exploratory and quantitative in nature.
Questionnaires were used to gather data. The questionnaires were personally
distributed at the business sites of the respondents. The respondents consisted
of 108 micro and survivalist enterprises of a selected informal sector in Durban,
who were selected by means of a non-probability sampling method.
The results obtained identified a number of limiting factors for the selected
informal enterprises’ long-term survival and development. The limiting factors,
that are internal to the businesses, included: poor planning, lack of networking,
insufficient business experience, poor pricing knowledge, managerial and
business knowledge incompetence and lack of literacy, education and training.
Those that are external to the businesses comprised of inadequate knowledge
in terms of the institutional and supportive environment. Few respondents knew
about financial and non-financial services and access to training and
development programmes provided by government, semi-government and other
institutions. As a result, recommendations to increase awareness of the different
incentives available to micro and survivalist enterprises have been set.