Business Development programme
(Operated through Business Linkage Advice Programme and Enterprise Information Centre)
The
Palabora Foundation supports an Enterprise Information
Centre (EIC) and
a Business Linkage Advice Programme. The EIC provides
a range of theoretical training and support to help small businesses,
whereas the focus is on more practical training and support from the Business Linkage Advice Programme.
We are also in the process of being
accredited by the Umsobomvu
Youth Fund, which helps youngsters to enter the business world.
We have had many success stories, and the number grows each year.
What we do
Enterprise Information Centre
Our main purpose is to empower the Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises/Black Economic Empowerment (SMME/BEE) sector with relevant training, mentoring, and counselling opportunities to provide capacity to them. This enables them to compete to provide the three supporting companies (Palabora Mining Company, Foskor Limited, Sasol Nitro) with goods and services.
This is achieved through:
- Assisting SMME/BEEs to establish their own businesses with counselling, business advice and training.
- Assisting local SMME/BEEs with tendering and market linkages.
- Providing capacity to existing businesses to maintain market share with possible expansion.
- Promoting new market opportunities for local business.
- Creating linkages with local SMME/BEEs to tender for contracts at local companies.
- Working with and encouraging networking of other organisation active in the same industry.
The programme involves a lot of mentoring, but we also monitor the new business
for some time to ensure that everything runs smoothly.
To enable us to help our clients, we have to keep abreast of government requirements (eg procurement laws on BEEs). We are then in a position to verify BEE status of suppliers, help white-owned businesses to find appropriate black partners and ensure that our advice fits with current government requirements.
We are committed to empowering women as well as black businessmen, especially now that Palabora has stated that 35% of its expenditure from 2010 must be with a female-based business. We train women in business and life skills to go into partnership with existing corporations or to start their own businesses.
Our other work includes providing statistics to Palabora on the split of BEE, women, youth and disabled providing services to the mine, and we work closely with the Local Economic Development & Tourism programme, giving the business perspective on community projects.
Over 500 SMME/BEEs attend dozens of training courses conducted by the EIC at Palabora Foundation each year. Courses vary in duration from one to five
days. Subjects include:
- Business Management
- Tendering Procedures and Methods
- Financial Management
- Business Improvement
- Marketing Principles
Free office facilities
At the Leboneng Centre in Namakgale we offer free photocopying, faxing, emailing and Internet access. This facility is open to all. To contact the centre, call the Foundation or talk to the centre administrator on 015 769 5055.
Business Linkage Advice Programme
The Business Linkage Advice Programme is a new initiative from the Palabora
Foundation, introduced at the end of 2006.
Some of the strategies that the programme will help to strengthen include:
- Assessing current BEE vendors by checking documentation and visiting BEEs/SMMEs to verify operational ability and to check on “fronting”
- Developing inter-firm networks with large and small companies (partnership development)
- Enhancing the capacity of firms for product and process innovation (technical development)
- Building relationships between local and Small and Medium enterprises
- Developing markets within local companies to ensure the sustainability of the BEE programme.
Umsobomvu Youth Fund
Umsobomvu Youth Fund offers young people (18 to 35 years old) opportunities to start up businesses and obtain partnerships in reputable franchises as an entry to the business world.
The prime target is marginalised youth from both rural and semi-urban settlements. The Fund offers vouchers of R7 000 per youth project. The voucher, which is neither refundable nor redeemable for cash, enables access to various business and financial services. These services include business registration, business plan development, marketing services and various other legal requirements required to start up businesses.
The Umsobomvu Youth Fund was initiated by President Thabo Mbeki to enable youngsters to join the mainstream economy.
Nearly a hundred youth enterprises are currently registered on Palabora Foundation's database, three-quarters of which have already benefited from the fund.
NQF skills development training courses
All of our NQF courses include a compulsory module on business advice, information and support. Business advice includes:
- Basic business management
- Basic financial management
- Developing a business plan
- Access to Umsobomvhu Youth Fund
- Access to SEDA funding
Although this module does not give students NQF credits, it is important for them to learn these business skills to enable them to start their own business or understand their part in someone else’s business.
How we started
This programme was jointly funded by Palabora Mining Company and the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA). In March 1995, the South African government adopted its White Paper on the National Strategy for the Development and Promotion of Small Business in South Africa. In 1996, the National Small Business Act (1996) was promulgated giving Business Advisory Centres (BACs) guiding principles and the necessary impetus to effectively implement the Small, Micro and Medium Enterprise (SMME) programmes. The Palabora Foundation, through accreditation by SEDA saw the opportunity to address the needs of the local SMME/BEEs within the greater Phalaborwa area.
"SEDA's mandate is broader than the support, promotion and development of small enterprises. The mandate includes the support and promotion of co-operative enterprises to reach a greater variety of enterprises, particularly those located in rural areas. This support of alternative forms of enterprises will be an important way to facilitate the integration of second economy into the first economy."
– Quote from Minister Mandisi Mpahlwa, 15 December 2004.
Run with assistance from the European Union