evidoria

← Back to browse

Good practice Imported

IPPC — Subsidised Consulting Vouchers for Small and Medium Enterprises in Puebla

Mexico · Puebla · See the Mexico profile · See the Puebla profile

Evidence: Randomised controlled trial Top 42% 71/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

A Puebla state agency matched 150 small and medium firms with subsidised local consultants for a year; five years later, Mexican social-security payroll data showed treated firms had added 57% more employees and 72% higher wage bills than untreated firms.

432 firms
Firms applied
150 firms
Firms randomly offered consulting
282 firms
Comparison group firms
4 hours/week
Consulting hours per week (1 year)
70-90 %
Subsidy covered by IPPC
0.21 standard deviations
Gain in productivity-adjusted sales (1 year)
0.22 standard deviations
Rise in return on assets (1 year)
57 vs 44 %
Treated firms reporting new marketing activity vs controls
93 vs 85 %
Treated firms keeping formal financial accounts vs controls
~57 %
Employment gain vs comparison firms (5-year follow-up)
72 %
Total wages higher than comparison firms (5-year follow-up)

Details

Maturity
Established
Promoter
Instituto Poblano para la Productividad Competitiva (IPPC)
Period
2008-2014
Keywords
SME development, business consulting, productivity

Context

Between 2008 and 2014, Puebla's state productivity agency, the Instituto Poblano para la Productividad Competitiva (IPPC), ran a randomised trial of subsidised business consulting for small and medium enterprises east of Mexico City.

Objectives

The programme aimed to test whether subsidised, matched local consulting could durably raise SME productivity and firm growth.

Activities

Of 432 firms that applied, 150 were randomly offered a year of consulting — four hours per week with a consultant from one of nine local firms — with IPPC covering 70-90% of the cost depending on firm size; 282 firms formed the comparison group.

Results

One year in, treated firms showed a 0.21 standard-deviation gain in productivity-adjusted sales and a 0.22 standard-deviation rise in returns on assets; 57% of treated firms reported new marketing activity (versus 44% of controls) and 93% kept formal financial accounts (versus 85%). Researchers then matched participants to Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) payroll records for the following five years and found the effect persisted: treated firms added roughly 57% more employees and paid 72% higher total wages than comparison firms — a rare demonstration that SME consulting effects can outlast the programme itself rather than fade after evaluation ends.

Conclusions

The design leaned on an unusually deep public subsidy and a functioning local consulting-firm market — conditions not present everywhere — and the evaluation did not report whether gains were shared evenly across firm types or owner demographics.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — IPPC subsidised 70-90% of consulting costs (4 hours/week for one year) for 150 firms via nine local consulting firms.
Time to results
Medium (1–3 years) — One-year consulting intervention (within the 2008-2014 study window), with outcomes tracked for five years via IMSS payroll records.
Staffing & skills
Instituto Poblano para la Productividad Competitiva (IPPC) — state agency, subsidy administration, Nine local consulting firms — service delivery, Academic research team (World Bank, Northwestern, MIT) — evaluation design and 5-year IMSS payroll matching

Conditions for success

  • Deep public subsidy (70-90% of cost) to make consulting accessible to SMEs
  • A functioning local market of consulting firms able to deliver 4 hours/week over a year
  • Administrative data linkage (IMSS payroll) enabling long-run outcome tracking

Common failure modes

  • Design depends on conditions not present everywhere: a deep subsidy budget and a functioning local consulting market
  • No reporting on whether gains were shared evenly across firm types or owner demographics

Do you run this practice? Claim it — verified implementers get a public contact pathway and can propose corrections.

Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Similar practices you may find useful