(by about 5-10%), very few studies found that these improvements in skills translated into positive effects on sales and profitability. This combination of small changes in business practices and low statistical power means that few studies find effects of training on sales or profitability, although a few studies find some positive short-term effects. By comparison, one-on-one consulting provided to larger firms can improve the performance of firms. Some of the reasons for limited impact of training programs include, short-time horizon of evaluations, and that the monitoring and evaluation surveys have high attrition rate such that the impact, especially on control group is not well measured. There may also be spillover effects on untreated control group of firms. There is also difficulty of measuring firm outcomes, such as revenues and profits, since firms in developing countries often do not keep records and are reluctant to share this information, which in turn might subject to changes in reporting following the business training.

# **_3.4.1 Content of training: What to train on?_**

There is a wide variety of technical skills training programs. Marketing and financial practices training programs are most common of these. In South Africa, experimental evidence on 852 (primarily micro) firms suggest that both training programs can increase firm profits. Twelve months after the program, treated firms with marketing training tended to have larger size (sales and employment) because they implemented better market research tactics, advertising, and were inclined to adjust to customer needs. By comparison, treated firms with finance training experienced larger changes in firm efficiency. These firms were more likely to adopt financial practices aimed at separating business and personal finances, keeping and analyzing business records, managing budgets more efficiently, and assessing working capital needs, implying a larger increase in output-input ratio relative to the other groups (Anderson et al., 2018). These results suggest that marketing training effects were larger for firms with less initial exposure to different market contexts, while the finance training effects were greater for firms with initially more established business. This evidence could potentially be important when designing firm support programs in the time of COVID-19. For example, marketing training could be critical during the crisis phase, however, firms will need to undergo capabilities training to enhance efficiency during the recovery and restructuring phase.

Management capabilities are seen as one avenue for enhancing firm productivity. An experiment with textile firms in India provides a proof-of-concept that intensive individualized consulting can deliver lasting improvements in the practices of badly managed firms, where management practices improved, on average, by 38 percent in a twelve-month period, resulting in productivity improvements by 17 percent (Bloom et al., 2013). Although this intervention improved management and firm performance, it came at a huge cost of approximately $75,000 per treated firm. This high cost is likely to be prohibitive for many SMEs to finance themselves, and for governments seeking to scale this up for assisting a large number of firms. In another experiment, Bruhn et al. (2018) show that using local consultants can also improve business 15