R1,7 MILLION BUSINESS TRAINING PAVES THE WAY FOR YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS

Colleen Dardagan

SA Canegrowers and the University of Pretoria’s Business Management Department have successfully concluded a R1.7 million Business Model Challenge aimed at boosting opportunities for budding entrepreneurs in rural areas. 

A group of youngsters who participated in the SA Canegrowers/University of Pretoria Business Model Challenge take a break during their training at the Umbumbulu community hall in Southern KwaZulu-Natal. The collaboration was funded by PwC and UNICEF.

UNICEF and auditing firm, PwC, provided the funding for 75 unemployed youngsters who live in some of the most remote districts where sugarcane is produced to attend the high-level training free of charge.

The partnership included in-person training from academics from the Department of Business Management at the University of Pretoria and was hosted in Umbumbulu in Southern KwaZulu-Natal and in Malalane in Mpumalanga.

The five-day introduction to entrepreneurship programme included instruction on:

• Day 1: The Entrepreneurial Landscape

• Day 2: Idea to Market

• Day 3: The Business Model 

• Day 4: Supply Chain Management

• Day 5: Supply Chain Management Simulation

This introduction programme was then followed by an advance entrepreneurship programme focusing on: 

• Day 1: Strategy

• Day 2: Sales and Marketing

• Day 3: Money Matters

• Day 4: Advanced Finance

• Day 5: Communication Skills

Following the abovementioned programmes, a Business Model Challenge was launched to allow the delegates to show what they had learned. The delegates submitted their business models for evaluation and the three best submissions in each region were identified.  

The winners in Mpumalanga were:

First - YOU CAN! After School Programme – Angelo Ngwenya

Second - SNO Rabbitry – Desree Ngomane

Third - Haute on Beauty – Pearl Mdaka

In KwaZulu-Natal:

First – Vusimbumbulu Agricultural Development – Bayanda Chonco

Second – UWS – Zivele Dlamini and his team Samkelo, Siyanda, and Last Machanya

Third – Zikhethele Chicken Farm – Andile Fortune Ndlovu

Those who came in first were awarded R50 000 to invest in their fledgeling businesses, while those placed second and third were awarded R30 000 and R20 000 respectively. 

Finding the business gaps

Prize winner from KwaZulu-Natal, Zivele Dlamini and teammate Last Machanya said when planning their business idea, they looked at what was needed in their community. “That was the start. We then learned how to plan our idea, how to run the finances and to keep our business in good shape. We also realised that we don’t need a huge sum of money to start a business,” they said.

Project leaders, Professor Alex Antonites and Dr Muriel Serfontein-Jordaan from the University of Pretoria’s Business Management Department described the collaboration with SA Canegrowers as a great success and expressed a keenness to repeat the exercise next year.

“Unemployment among young people in South Africa is a significant problem,” Serfontein-Jordaan said. “We recognise that collaboration between players who understand the urgency of finding effective solutions to the unemployment issues in our country is the key to  solving the problem. The University of Pretoria, PwC and UNICEF – who already have an established relationship – identified SA Canegrowers as an ideal partner for the programme as the organisation has significant influence in the rural communities of Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal,” she said.

Creative business ideas

Ikageng Malaluke, who is the SA Canegrowers Area Manager at Eston in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands who oversaw the training in the Umbumbulu district said she was impressed with the range of businesses that were suggested by the entrants. “They were so creative in their ideas. From small vegetable garden businesses to construction, depending on what they thought their community might need. Our collaboration with the University of Pretoria has given young people – in an area where jobs are difficult to find – the tools to start workable businesses. We now want to find ways that we can continue the conversation and help them to put their ideas into practice,” she said.