Cluster initiatives in the context of the BEE model

The phenomenon of small and medium-sized enterprises has been known for decades. The importance of these businesses is important both from the perspective of macroeconomic and social. It is a fact that small and mediumsized enterprises have a competitive position in the market compared to large competitors, for example multinational concerns. The financial possibilities of SMEs are weaker and the possibility of investing in research and development is scarce. Solution to this problem is to link the business to the entrepreneurial networks and the cluster. The aim of this paper is to identify the benefits of linking SMEs to the network and to describe the possibility of using the BEE model to assess the state of the business environment.