Engagement is the starting point
AS THE world marks Global Entrepreneurship Week, Seed Engine, which supports entrepreneurs, has said that engagement with policy-makers and financial supporters is the starting point to enable small business to thrive.
Seed Engine chief executive Donna Rachelson said entrepreneurs and small businesses were being tasked with the responsibility to grow the economy and creating millions of new jobs.
“We owe it to them to improve the entrepreneurial ecosystem and ensure an enabling environment for businesses to grow and thrive. Better and more robust engagement with policy-makers and providers of financial and non-financial support is one place to start.”
Rachelson said it was worthwhile to take stock of the current entrepreneurial landscape in South Africa and questioned how best to forge ahead.
“This is especially important considering the government’s National Development Plan places the onus on small and expanding businesses to create some 90% of new jobs, with the ultimate goal of reducing unemployment to just 6% by 2030.
“This is no small task given that in real terms the country needs to create about 11 million more jobs in the next 12 years supported by an average economic growth of 5.4% every year over the period to achieve that aim,” she pointed out.
Rachelson said the engagements with policy-makers and funders should include the need for scaling and improvement of the efficiency of SME funding.
“Based on research carried out by Seed Academy this year, most early-stage SMEs need below R100 000 to get their businesses off the ground. Development finance institutions need to play a more active role in marketing themselves and ensuring businesses understand the process and criteria for getting funds from them,” she said.
She added that on the other hand many entrepreneurs were not “funding ready”.
Rachelson said the public and private sector needed to look at what more can be done to integrate entrepreneurship into basic and tertiary education. “We also need to ensure that all organisations focused on enhancing entrepreneurship in South Africa do not work in silos,” she added.
UKZN business administration lecturer and researcher Dr Pfano Mashau said collaboration between policy-makers, funders and entrepreneurs was key. “Entrepreneurs should be part of innovation centres and incubators to develop them until they can operate without help,” Mashau said.