SME – Small to Medium-sized Enterprises: For most manufacturing industries, the SBA definition of “small business” is a firm with fewer than 500 employees (SBA 2013). The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) uses this SBA definition for small business and adds “medium business” as a manufacturer with fewer than 2,500 employees. One Small Step for Energy Efficiency: Targeting Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturers
The SBA’s table of small business size standards helps small businesses assess their business size.
A size standard, which is usually stated in number of employees or average annual receipts, represents the largest size that a business (including its subsidiaries and affiliates) may be to remain classified as a small business for SBA and federal contracting programs. The definition of “small” varies by industry. Table of Size Standards
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) or small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are businesses whose personnel numbers fall below certain limits. The abbreviation "SME" is used by international organizations such as the World Bank, the European Union, the United Nations and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
SMEs outnumber large companies by a wide margin and also employ many more people. For example, Australian SMEs make up 98% of all Australian businesses, produce one-third of the total GDP and employ 4.7 million people. In Chile, in the commercial year 2014, 98.5% of the firms were classified as SMEs. In Tunisia, the self-employed workers alone account for about 28% of the total non-farm employment and firms with fewer than 100 employees account for about 62% of total employment. In developing countries, smaller (micro) and informal firms, have a larger share than in developed countries. SMEs are also said to be responsible for driving innovation and competition in many economic sectors. Although they create more new jobs than large firms, they also suffer the majority of job destruction/contraction.