Egypt’s SMEs carry the private sector. Growth tests how they are run

A business can still be small when the management job gets complicated. Micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises made up 90% of Egypt’s private sector in 2024, generated 43% of GDP, and employed 75% of the workforce, Ahram Online reports.

Growth rewrites the job descriptions. The best engineer or salesperson becomes a first-time manager, responsible for a team they were never trained to lead. Their employers rarely fill that gap: just 5% of small firms offer formal staff training, compared with 19% of large firms, according to a World Bank survey.

The org chart is only the beginning. The owner takes on financial decisions that used to be simple, from managing working capital to funding the next stage of expansion. Supply and inventory decisions grow more complex as volumes rise, and winning customers means competing through digital channels against rivals with much larger marketing budgets.

AUC Onsi Sawiris School of Business Executive Education already works with smaller firms. SMEs account for 52% of participants and join the same open and custom programs as larger companies. The sectors they represent vary widely. In FY 2025/26, more than 40% of open enrollment participants came from healthcare and pharma, banking and financial services, and real estate; others came from government and NGOs, construction, education, engineering, and technology. Three programs line up directly with those growing pains. The Advanced Management Program covers the broader mix of strategy, finance, and people management that leaders need as a business grows. The Supply Chain Management Professional Certificate covers supply and inventory planning, and the Digital Marketing Certificate covers competing for customers online.

The course comes after the diagnosis. The school’s Business Solutions team starts with a training needs assessment and designs the program around the company’s own challenges and the roles it needs to strengthen. For a smaller firm, that can mean training for the leadership team, an exclusive cohort, or a few managers joining an open enrollment program.

For more information on AUC Onsi Sawiris School of Business Executive Education’s programs, click here.