David White - Building A Nation
2020-02-20
Looking forward into 2020 we feel positive that South African Entrepreneurs are going to play their part, and do what it is we are expecting from them... to innovate and create employment.
As has been repeated since days of old, “necessity is the mother of invention”. Today, South Africa, as in many developing countries, and the world at large,
need Entrepreneurs to help create new products and services that will encourage and influence a “green” way of living for all. This is a necessity, priority and
opportunity all rolled up into one single requirement.
South Africa in particular needs pioneers and innovators, not only to help us work towards reducing and stabilising our C02 emissions, but also to help overcome inertia and create momentum for new ways of serving our people – and ensuring the growth, development and sustainability of our inclusive economy.
At BusinessFit, we, like many other thought leading organisations in the “entrepreneur development” space know for certain that Entrepreneurs are critical in creating new ideas and opportunities within our economy and the world. In South Africa we know that it is Entrepreneurs that will help to enable suitable change to create opportunity and promote our ideal of “a working nation”.
South Africa has always been cited as a nation of unique out of the box thinkers. The combination of the boer-maak-a-plan concept and the deep centered culture of Ubuntu are strong foundations from which we can build our successful country and create prosperity at all economic levels.
Entrepreneurs are needed in all social classes and environments, and it is certainly possible to encourage and promote entrepreneurial thinking and actions. South Africans are naturally creative people, and as we recognise that coupling our economic thoughts and ideas with business mindedness and processes, building confidence in what and how we are doing our business activities, and creating opportunity for new markets and expansion, we can and will ignite growth, development and prosperity.
Inhibiters blocking our creativeness and desired outcomes include challenges like electricity load-shedding, polarity of political parties, complexity in business
set-up and administration, but mainly that we have a population largely made up of financially and business process illiterate people. Knowing these critical factors as our challenges and constraints is 51% of the way towards creating common solutions and a positive step forward.
BusinessFit has recognised that quality and longevity from entrepreneurial service providers can only come from an economic culture of “continual learning
and business opportunities being awarded on merit”. We cannot expect our entrepreneurial businesses, either small or large, to succeed if we have not encouraged the development of our business leaders and helped them understand and build a suitable business foundation for their enterprise growth and
sustainability.
BusinessFit’s confidence in the future comes from having mentored entrepreneurs and SMEs for long enough to recognise and develop a methodology to provide urgently needed functional area and business leadership support, and to help them in their creation of a suitable route to market to distribute their products and services.
We do not see value in Entrepreneurs being caught up in the administration of their businesses – we want Entrepreneurs to lead their enterprises and staff with confidence in their “business minded” ability, and where applicable to draw non-core components of their business process requirement from able and
trusted functional area service providers. This is especially true in the initial stages of an enterprise set-up, where to a large degree, young business leaders are not skilled in the administration requirements and effectiveness of leading their organisations.
Building and maintaining a business framework includes critical foundational aspects like creating appropriate budgets, defining suitable product margins and cashflow requirements, drawing up service level agreements and supplier contracts, appointing staff and creating a human resource management foundation, defining quality assurance standards, and defining appropriate policies and procedures. These are not normally the skills understood and held dear by an Entrepreneur.
There are, however, many trained people and specialists in each of the functional areas which include HR, finance, marketing, legal, operations, IT, and others
that are easily able to provide entrepreneurs and SMEs with the support and clarity needed in each of these business environments.
The unique passion, purpose and energy of entrepreneurs and their ideas is not duplicatable, unlike the skills in functional area activities. Successful Entrepreneurs rightly see their role as leaders driving innovation, seeking opportunity, and ensuring sustainability.
Passion and thought innovation often come from deep within the Entrepreneur’s soul, rising from his or her experiences, and focusing on the wants, needs and demands of our changing society. Entrepreneurs very often are able to tap into an inner strength and greater source of inspiration to bring their dreams and ideas to the fore – but they still need the business foundation to bring their ideas to economic prosperity.
What is new and exciting... is that BusinessFit has created what we believe is perhaps the first quality assured B2B Services App in South Africa, and possibly
the world. The App has been the result of our 8 years in mentoring Entrepreneurs and helping them to create solid business foundations to support their business ideas and endeavors. The App helps Entrepreneurs through a 5 Star Quality Assurance process, while also creating an online profile for the market to seek and identify new supplier potential.
The purpose of the App being to reassure those established enterprises that transacting with emerging suppliers i.e. those who have successfully completed the BusinessFit 5 Star Process is not a high-risk venture and indeed will contribute to their supplier diversification strategy and thus support sustainable economic transformation.
The Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry and BusinessFit are launching the B2B Quality Assurance Services App on the 1st April 2020 to 100 companies. If anyone would like to be part of this test phase initiative, please contact Lindiwe Bhadi, BusinessFit Admin Manager on lindiwe@businessfit.co.za or Stephanie Ephraim Durban Chamber Membership Manager on ephraims@durbanchamber.co.za for more info.