Supporting Enterprise Development

THE Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber Enterprise Development (ED) Programme is a multifaceted programme combining mentorship and skills training programmes to develop small businesses.

Its key outcome is enabling participants with the understanding of the key elements of being market ready, growing their businesses and creating sustainable jobs while providing participants with supportive and effective mentoring.

The Programme achieves this through offering an effective combination of skills development as well as combining core and elective courses through classroom training, soft skills and informational workshops.

The programme is open to all small businesses across all sectors within the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, who meet the requirements of the following criteria:

• Fully committed to a minimum of 45 hours over a six months period and complete the Programme with maximum participation;
• Owner managers running Exempt Micro Enterprises (EME), as per the Dti’s definition of EMEs;
• A BBBEE certificate or a letter from an auditor or accounting officer verifying that the business is an EME;
• For profit businesses that have been operational for at least 18 months to two years;
• Businesses that seek to expand their businesses to other markets;
• Businesses registered with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC);
• And who are in good standing with the South African Revenue Services (SARS).

The most recent phase of the Programme started off exceptionally well with maximum attendance for the initial sessions. Shortly after an Induction Session that was held on November 14, 2016 where presentations were done by the Eastern Cape Development Corporation, the Business Chamber, NMMU Business School and Tradelane, an event calendar was shared and contracts were signed with the participants.

A successful Baseline Mentorship Session was conducted on November 15, 2016, where participants were able to share the baseline profiles of their businesses and get an understanding of the mentorship sessions as well as the importance of mentorship.

“A variety of educational and informative workshops have been made available to the participants and they have certainly shown an overall positive commitment and are mostly people who are facing challenges to keep their businesses on a positive path of growth, in the prevailing business environment,” saidBusiness Chamber Operations Manager, Prince Matonsi.

Matonsi said the incorporation of mentoring has been significant for the Programme, as the SME owners and managers need overall support and guidelines when it comes to strategic decision making and the interpretation of market trends. The training interventions with the mentors will provide much needed enterprise development support for the entrepreneurs.