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SME's - a solution for Africa
Written by: Dr. Rob SmorfittArticle Overview: Building sustainable SME's in Africa is tough. It can be done like this.
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Free Download - SMEs – SMEs struggling in South Africa. Why? By Dr. Rob Smorfitt |
SME's - a solution for Africa
I wrote previously on the difference between entrepreneurs and small business managers who own their own business or franchise. The franchisor in a successful franchise concept runs the marketing and strategy, and thereby keeps it on track. As a consequence banks are always prepared to fund these enterprises. This is critically important as one of the largest contributory factors to SME failure is insufficient working capital. Yes, they are terribly undercapitalised.
Therein lies the solution. Africa has very few entrepreneurs, and this is not the place to discuss the why. However, they can still create wealth, through the use of compliance models such as franchising.
Africa's future lies in franchising, both internationally and locally developed. Compliance models create bankable SME's. Bankable SME's create opportunities for wealth creation. Compliance models result in major risk mitigation.
Rob Smorfitt
Restricted Access to Finance
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Helping SMEs meet the requirements of formal financing - Increasing SME Access to Finance: A Four Pronged Approach
SMEs – SMEs struggling in South Africa. Why?
Article Tags: compliance, franchise, SME, SME success, Smorfitt
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About the Author: Dr. Rob Smorfitt RSS for Dr. Rob's articles - Visit Dr. Rob's website  Have an MBA and a PhD in entrepreneurship. Three key areas of ongoing research are entrepreneurship and innovation in large business strategy, the impact of legislation on SME development and SME finance. Run my own SME blog at http://sme-smb-smme.blogspot.com as well as an entrepreneurship and innovation for large businesses blog at http://innoveur.blogspot.com I have been self-employed since 1982. I have started or purchased in excess of 50 businesses since then. Most were sold again and a few were shut down because of a lack of profitability. Many were run by staff or family while I worked full time in my bigger businesses. Author of 6 books. Written articles for various magazines, newspapers and websites. Experienced in research within developing countries.
Click here to visit Dr. Rob's website  
 SMEs a solution for Africa SMEs working in the dark SMEs SMEs and South African banks SMEs why compliance models work in Africa SMEs regulatory compliance is it an issue |
Related Forum Posts
Re: In-House or Outsource?
- Unfortunately, in the South African context, very few SMEs see outsourcing as an option. They believe it is too expensive, and they are paranoid that someone will "steal their ideas".
I believe that the three main functions that cannot be outsourced are marketing, sales and strategy. These must be done in house I believe. If you do not have the marketing skills then get them. Hire a consultant or attend a course, but get the skills. Even if you use a consultant, you need to understand what marketing is about, as no one knows your market like you do. Marketing is made to seem difficult and complex, but everyone who really understands their markets, can easily learn to do their own marketing.
In South Africa, labour legislation is extremely inflexibile, and consequently labour broking is a large industry. This is an ideal starting point for SMEs in South Africa, as it is a legally complex area, whih comes with severe penalties.
I say do it!
Rob Smorfitt
Re: need advice
- Africa is a pretty big place I think it is a question of where in Africa you would like to open a call centre. South Africa for example actually has plenty of call centres already operating, so it would very much depend on what part of Africa you are considering.
MichelleJ
Re: Newbie from Africa
- Hello Biiyke
Welcome to the forum. Which part of Africa are you from it is quite a big continent? I live in South Africa.
MichelleJ
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Re: Newbie from Africa
- [quote="Evan":22gvtxlq]Welcome to the forums Biiyke!
You asked if we know any sellers who were trying to reach the African market... I think you'd honestly have more luck going the other way - try to find sellers in Africa and sell to the rest of the world.[/quote:22gvtxlq]
Hello Evan,
You are absolutely correct.Thank you for your advice.That's actually the whole idea,Africa to the world and the world to Africa. So I will throw more weight on that area.
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