Abstract:The upgrading of small and medium-sized enterprises to specialized and sophisticated is an important driving force for promoting regional industrial development, while the business environment is a key external environment of the market mainly for local governments, and its service to enterprise agglomeration and development has become a hot spot for research in the field. Therefor, how to coordinate the business environment to promote the development of regional enterprises to specialized and sophisticated is a practical question that needs to be answered urgently. Based on the list of five batches of “little giants” enterprises released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, taking Ningbo as an example, this paper uses methods such as kernel density analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, and configuration analysis (fsQCA) to study the hot spot of the spatial distribution of its 352 “little giants” enterprises, and analyze the business environment adaptation path of the number of “little giants” enterprises. The results show that: (1)The spatial distribution of “little giants” enterprises in Ningbo generally follows a “one pole and two cores” pattern, with “more in the north and less in the south”, with manufacturing accounting for 87.78%. (2)The number of “little giants” enterprises in Ningbo is significantly positively correlated with the local business environment(except for the financial services indicators), and there are significant differences in the habitat portrait among the three groups of districts and counties divided by hierarchical cluster method. (3)A single factor does not constitute a necessary condition for a high number of “little giants” enterprises in Ningbo, the two business environment configurations, innovation-driven by the rule of law market, innovation-driven by the rule of law market and the government, can produce a high number of enterprises in the same way, with the optimization of the law environment, market environment, innovation environment, and public services playing a universal role. On these grounds, to give full play to the role of the combination of core business environment elements to promote specialized and sophisticated enterprises, the legal environment is fundamental, providing good public services, expanding the volume of the market environment, and fostering an innovation environment are the top priorities.