Impact of Business Development Services on the Performance of SMEs in Adamawa State

This study assesses the impact of business development services on the performance of small and medium enterprises in Adamawa State, North East Nigeria, examining whether SMEs that access formal business advisory, training, and consulting services achieve better performance outcomes than those operating without such support. Business development services, encompassing management training, market research assistance, financial advisory, and business planning support, are widely recommended as performance-enhancing interventions for SMEs in developing economies, but evidence of their impact in Adamawa State, where access to formal BDS providers is very limited, remains absent from the literature. The study employs a comparative descriptive design, administering a structured questionnaire to 80 SMEs that have utilised formal BDS programmes and 80 comparable SMEs operating without formal BDS support, drawn from Yola, Jimeta, and Numan Local Government Areas. Business performance is measured using composite indicators of revenue growth, employment change, and operational efficiency improvement over a 24-month reference period. Data were analysed using independent samples t-tests and descriptive statistics. Findings indicate that BDS-accessing SMEs show significantly higher performance on all three indicators, with revenue growth averaging 28 percent above the non-BDS comparison group over the reference period. Financial advisory services show the highest marginal impact, followed by market development assistance. Access to BDS in Adamawa State is very limited, with the majority of BDS-accessing SMEs in the sample having obtained services through the SMEDAN Adamawa office rather than private providers. Keywords: business development services, SME performance, Adamawa State, enterprise support, SMEDAN.