The Nelson Mandela Bay Business Chamber’s SMME and Entrepreneurship Desk has 105 registered members and of this, 56% represent women run businesses, indicating a growing trend of women entering into entrepreneurial opportunities, says Denise van Huyssteen, Chamber CEO.
These companies have a combined annual revenue generation of over R100 million and employ 428 employees. To date, 18 internships have been created through the Chamber’s SMME and Entrepreneurship Desk.
“Women are typically well represented in leadership roles in the finance, legal, human resources and services sectors in Nelson Mandela Bay. However, they are generally under-represented in strategic roles across the manufacturing sector, as well as in Managing Director roles at medium to large business operations. It is therefore vital that young women are encouraged to pursue qualifications which will provide them with a broader scope and options, thus increasing their eligibility for other types of leadership roles. Examples of these fields include engineering, chartered accounting, Information Technology and the growing renewable energy terrain,” says Van Huyssteen.
Given the importance of entrepreneurship in reviving our local economy and creating jobs, Van Huyssteen says this should be more proactively positioned as a viable option for women to pursue. In tandem with this, it is vital that mentoring, coaching and other support is provided to interested women who have the potential to run their own businesses.
More importantly, women play an increasingly significant role in driving South Africa’s economy, including their contribution socially and professionally. “While the country has made some excellent gains, a huge opportunity remains for the public and private sectors to work together to accelerate efforts to dismantle the structural obstacles and biases that impede female entrepreneurship. This is to ensure that the playing field is levelled for women to further play an enlarged role in the country’s economic recovery.”
SMMEs are the engines that drive economic growth throughout the world as they account for the largest portion of jobs created, including their contribution to the country’s GDP growth. Their development, growth and sustainability is significantly important as it is directly linked to the country’s economic and social success.
As such, the Chamber’s SMME and Entrepreneurship Desk acts as a single contact where business support, growth and sustainability initiatives are housed, and these are achieved through four pillars such as access to funding and professional banking services; access to business development; access to advisory support and market access.
Standard Bank’s Eastern Cape Head: client coverage and business clients, Leigh-Anne de Witt said from the banking point of view, they have noticed that their newly established relationships have been with entrepreneurs in the legal, medical, manufacturing, accounting sectors and of course other general trades.
“While these are still at a relatively low revenue scale – it is encouraging to see the emergence of women-led businesses. In general, there is still some dominance of male entrepreneurs in our base, some partnering with women for possible skills transfer or to explore far reaching business opportunities. We are yet to see independently run operations by women in the agricultural space.
“As women retire or breakaway from formal employment, they seem to be opening consultancy businesses – tapping onto their respective experiences. There is definitely an opportunity to forge more growth partnerships with female entrepreneurs and contribute to their entrepreneurial skills development,” says De Witt.
