Backbone of the economy
SIHLE MLAMBO FINDS OUT MORE ABOUT THE ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR AWARDS AT THE LAUNCH THIS WEEK
EMERGING entrepreneurs, innovative businesspeople and big business will have an opportunity to be especially celebrated at the 30th anniversary of the Entrepreneur of the Year awards.
The awards, backed by Business Partners and Sanlam, are regarded as one of the premier entrepreneurial competitions in the country. On Thursday, the 2018 edition of the EOY was launched at the Oyster Box hotel in umhlanga.
The top prize, entrepreneur of the year, will see one person walk away with R200 000 in prize money and valuable business mentorship from the sponsors, to take their business to the next level.
Other categories include: Emerging business of the year. Small business of the year. Medium business of the year. Job creator of the year. Innovator of the year.
The five categories come with
R70 000 prize money.
Gugu Mjadu, marketing head at Business Partners, said the awards had been won by 35% women and 35% black business. Mjadu said it would like to see more women in business win the awards.
“It is fitting that we have the launch of this year’s awards on International Women’s Day,” she said. “We have seen the number of increases from women in the past few years and we have had 35% of winners being women in business. We would like to grow that to 55% or more, to say thank you for running successful businesses.”
Mjadu said it understood that entrepreneurs did not go into business to win awards, but to make a difference, but she said the awards was an opportunity for businesspeople to gain recognition.
“We know you want to make a difference, you want to create jobs and create wealth for yourself and contribute and come up with solutions to problems. This is that one moment, where once a year, you can celebrate yourself,” said Mjadu.
“We want to say thank you to entrepreneurs for the role you play, whether you create employment for one or two people or 100, this is why we started the awards 30 years ago,” she said.
Mjadu said an entreprenuerial spirit must be celebrated in South Africa and that by celebrating entrepreneurship, it created a climate which said, “I can also do this” – which harboured well for the country’s future.
Mjadu said Free State businessman Tommy Makhatho had won the coveted entrepreneur of the year award twice, for two different businesses. The last that won, was a cash and carry business, of which he had eight branches in the Free State.
After receiving mentorship and technical assistance from the sponsors, he built partnerships and is now supplier for the UN.
“Winning the award can open up more opportunities by developing relationships that can help your business, that can help your business develop further,” she said.
Sanlam Business Market’s marketing head Kobus Engelbrecht said entrepreneurs were the backbone of the economy.
“We need to realise that entrepreneurs are the carriers of our economy in South Africa, the government is not going to do it, corporates are scaling down, but you can create employment,” he said.
Engelbrecht said the national aura towards entrepreneurship should change.
“If I had told my parents that I want to start a business after finishing school, they would have been upset with me,” he said.
“When my son finished high school, he said to me ‘I do not want to go to university and study’. He said to me, ‘if I go to university,
I can’t run my business’, so he thought he would be wasting four years on his business.
“His friends went to study Bcoms and other degrees. When people go to university to study, they should go there to acquire skills and start their own businesses afterwards,” he said.
“We want to recognise entrepreneurs and put them on a pedastal, we want to say look, it’s great to be an entrepreneur.
“Look at Christo Wiese for example, he lost R50 billion the other day and he’s still okay. We need to show young people that entrepreneurship is a career choice and it’s possible. Expose children to business so they know how it works.
“Of course there must be a balance, we can’t all be servants who want to work for corporates, there must be a balance between entrepreneurs and employees,” he said.
Engelbrecht said the founder of Taxify, Estonian tech businessman Markus Villig, who was 19 when he founded the business that competes with Uber, was just one example of how young people could thrive in business.
Villig is now 23 – the youngest at Taxify – and the average of the people working at Taxify headquarters in Estonia, is 27.
The oldest employee, is 28, said Engelbrecht.
“That is a fantastic story that says you don’t have to be old. This guy did not write the computer programme for the app, he hired someone to do that and his business is thriving,” he said.
Taxify, which is also available in Durban, is reportedly Europe’s leading ride sharing app.
To enter your business for EOY2018 awards, visit: www.eoy. co.za