Enterprise Development Programme

The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber Enterprise Development Programme was launched in 2014, to develop the skills that enhance and grow small businesses. Close to 200 SMEs (small to medium-sized enterprises) benefited from taking part in the four different phases of the programme.

The objective of the programme is to develop sustainable SMEs through an enabling creative enterprise development programme and facilitate the effective combination of skills development and coaching and mentoring. The combination of offerings on the enterprise development programme empowers the SMEs to run financially sustainable enterprises, unlocking socio-economic development through structured multi-level training, mentoring and linkage support.

Other objectives include:

• Creation of Business-2-Business Platforms that aid SMEs to be prepared for finance, sales and market opportunities.
• Increased awareness of SMEs on government procurement opportunities.
• Utilisation of the Business Chamber networking and Business-2-Business platforms to promote their businesses.
• Providing pipeline SMEs for funding and support by ECDC.

The proposed revised skills workshops, incorporating coaching and mentoring, as well as developing soft skills through modular practical shorter sessions, aim to strengthen the impact of the programme building on the lessons learnt above.

The intended benefit of the programme is for SMEs to, through their participation, understand the elements of being market ready, growing their business and creating sustainable jobs. The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber endeavours to provide holistic enterprise development support to entrepreneurs. This is done in the form of training, mentoring and coaching as well as consulting services.

The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber has secured the use of ILO’s Expand Your Business programme framework as the kick-start solution to the various permutations of interventions. The Expand Your Business programme (EYB) is an integrated business training and support package for growth-oriented small to medium-sized enterprises that earns you a mini-MBA on your business. The EYB framework is a great tool for collating a baseline with key performance indicators while performing an independent assessment of the growth potential of entrepreneurs in development. Facilitated by professionals, it forms the basis of definition of the nature of future interventions with an entrepreneur and provides an independent review of key growth indicators.

Application form can be downloaded here: Enterprise Development Form

Partners

• ECDC
• NMU Business School