According to business owners, Eindhoven is the friendliest municipality in North Brabant when it comes to Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) or MKBs, as they are known in Dutch.
On Friday, Councillor Stijn Steenbakkers (pictured) received the prize from Jan van den Hoff, MKB Eindhoven’s chairperson. “This is a nice boost for the Eindhoven City Council,” says Jan. “We see this primarily as an incentive for the Municipality to engage in an even better dialogue with small and medium-sized businesses.”
This is the first time a large city has won top honours in the provincial rankings. Eindhoven scored above the national average in the study’s main categories. These include Communication and Policy, Levies, and Service Satisfaction. The other main category the Businesses Image outside their municipality. Digital accessibility is at the top of the list when it comes to services. Business owners also feel they are well understood and that the Council is taking sufficient initiatives.
On the downside, SMEs in Eindhoven are dissatisfied with how the Municipality is combating regulatory pressure. Less than a fifth think that the municipality is doing enough about this.
The SME-friendliest municipality is an initiative of MKB-Nederland. The research was conducted by the LexNova agency. The biennial prize serves as an incentive for municipalities to actively promote better SME policy. It was awarded for the fifth time this year.
