 In this topic, we are going to discuss the internationalization of SMEs and what are the barriers that restrict SMEs to go for internationalization. You know that we have already discussed the difficulties that multinationals face in going international. So small and medium enterprises, they have even more difficulty in going international because they are smaller organizations, they have less experience, they have less number of people. And that is why there are greater barriers to entry for an SME in the international market. So let's take a look what these barriers are. Number one, this was a survey which was conducted by the OECD on 978 SMEs and these are the different barriers which were found in the internationalization of SMEs. So the first barrier is not having enough working capital to finance exports because these are smaller organizations and you need a level of working capital. The second barrier is inability to identify foreign business opportunities because these organizations, they have less exposure, you know, that multinationals, they have more opportunities. They send their people to conferences, they send their people for marketing, they send their people for exploration, but because they have lesser resources, it is difficult for them to identify the foreign business. Then they have limited information to locate and analyze market. Information generate karna bhi jo hai, ye ek time-taking or it requires effort and time-taking. Then they have limited information to locate and analyze market. Information generate karna bhi jo hai, ye ek time-taking or it requires effort and resources, connections, contacts and all these things. So they don't have enough information to locate and analyze markets. Then they have inability to contact potential overseas customers. You know that in multinationals, the customers, they come to the multinationals themselves, they locate the multinationals themselves. But for the SMEs, it is difficult to locate potential overseas contacts for which they would be able to sell their products for. So for them, it is difficult to contact the customers as well. Another important barrier is that there is inability to obtain reliable foreign representation. Because you know these are smaller organizations, anybody would be really interested and excited to represent a multinational organization. I am representing McDonald's or Coca Cola. But if an organization is a small organization that doesn't have a well-known established entity in the market, people who are any kind of person would be hesitant to represent that organization, to be a part of that organization. Particularly when you are talking about a foreign market in which they don't even know people, they don't even know that company, and they don't even have their own track record. So it is difficult for them to get foreign representation. Then another barrier is the lack of managerial time to handle internationalization. So you see that small and medium enterprises have a smaller number of human resources. And in a small and medium enterprise, the usual type of organizational structure is that of informal authority. And with informal authority, people are doing various different tasks that belong to different functions of the organization. Informally, when you are working, one person might be looking at marketing and finance, or maybe R&D. Sometimes it is only one founder or owner who is looking after all the decision-making of the SME. So in such a situation, when you are performing multiple roles and working informally, it is always difficult because people are already overloaded with work. So there is less managerial time that can be specifically allocated in an SME for internationalization. In M&Es, you allocate a different department for that particular purpose. But because in SMEs, informally, work is being done. So there is a specific structure to allocate managerial time for internationalization. Then another barrier is untrained or not enough personnel to go international. So because there are lesser number of people in that organization, there is greater possibility that people who are capable and trained to go and work in the international market, explore the international market, manage the international market, there is a lack of such capable and trained people. So that is also a barrier for internationalization. And another barrier is difficulty in managing competitors' prices. You know that economies of scale are provided when you are producing at a larger level. Since SMEs, they cannot go up to that level, which can be achieved by multinationals, which are larger enterprises. In that situation, when you achieve economies of scale, you are able to lower your prices, which the SMEs cannot do. So there is a difficulty for them to manage the competitors' prices. Lack of home government assistance and incentives. If the home government is not providing sufficient incentives and sufficient assistance to SMEs, it is very difficult for those SMEs to thrive in the local market as well as the international market. So the government of a particular country that has to take a special initiative to facilitate, to provide assistance and to provide special incentives to those organizations which are SMEs so that they can grow and they can go international and contribute significantly to the economy of a country. So that is another barrier that home governments, they don't provide proper assistance and incentives. And then finally excessive transportation and insurance costs. This is something which is another barrier for SMEs in going international because their costs are already higher. So when there are additional costs in transportation and insurance of goods that are being sold outside, that are being exported outside, that increases the cost of selling even more. So that is another barrier. The large enterprises, they can divide these overhead costs over the larger number of units being sent and exported abroad. But because SMEs, they have smaller number of units being produced. It is difficult for them to divide these transportation costs on those smaller number of units. So it becomes a barrier for entry in internationalization for SMEs. So these were the 10 different barriers which were identified by the OACD survey as playing important role in the internationalization of SMEs.