Edward Rankhumise
The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors that contribute to the success of small business in the two selected provinces of South Africa, namely, Gauteng and Mpumalanga. The methodology followed in this study is a cross-sectional survey. Data was collected from 169 participants to understand the small and medium-sized enterprise owners managers perceptions on factors affecting business success. In analysing data, Stata v15 was used to generate both descriptive and inferential statistics. Results indicate that there are factors that are considered important for the success of businesses. These factors are access to the market, access to finance, personal qualities access to information technology, managerial skills and education and training. These factors are critical and enterprises should nurture these factors to improve the success of small and medium-sized businesses. It can be concluded that the majority of the participants were confident about the running of their business and their growth prospects. It is further noted that the findings provided important information that other enterprise owners, as well as prospective entrepreneurs, can use to improve their business endeavours