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Lack of capital is not the main reason for a failing business

NAIROBI - Senior Manager, Andrew Bam and  Business Advisor , Lucas Kgopa  who are experts from the small enterprise development agency (SEDA)  believe that Every crisis presents an opportunity.

They are from an organisation  based in Pretoria, South Africa, that help develop micro enterprises  from all sectors by providing a non-financial support.

According to Kgopa,Seda’s mission is to develop, support and promote small enterprises throughout the country, ensuring their growth and sustainability from a start-up level  to a mature and flourishing business.

"Every small business owner that you meet is likely to say to you, I need money, only to realize that there are other avenues that this owner could exhaust in order to get their business to the other level and elevate it.Finance is not always  the main problem".he said.

One of the advantages of  SEDA agency is that they have their own in house business diagnosis tools.The agency  does thorough research  to find out the actual challenges and limitations of their clients.

 Kgopa said, "there is always this misconception that each and every business owner thinks that access to find finance is always the main problem. where as it is not always the case."

Adding, the reason why a business owner can't get  profit is because there are issues within the business. If  the issues are fixed, the business will get maximum profit.

 Andrew Bam  said that  it is a very difficult space to work in because there is a variety of people from different education  and income levels.

He emphasized on the  inequality in South Africa. Bam spoke about the contrast between the people who live in the township ,who are financially unstable , on the hand, the ones who live in the Suburbs have no financial instability.

He said , " When looking at the context of South Africa under inequality , the best way for us to do it is to help small business owners, to get people to start their own business and to reduce unemployment".

Their programs  have intervened in about 10,000 different businesses around the  country.In total they have about 30,000 businesses that  they have worked with.

Each year  they  work  with  up to 80, 000 new business owners who work with them and they have also done coaching programs such as peer to peer networking.They have also created 1200 jobs.

SEDA agency also partners with The Small Enterprise Finance Agency(SIFA). SIFA helps by giving the small business owners a loan , they assist with financial support at reduced rates.

The two experts were in Nairobi for the food and beverage expo, 23-25 , January.

Bam said they wanted to introduce their small business owners to the international market to meet potential clients, buyers and suppliers.

"Bigger companies that normally come to this expos have the financial resources so we sponsor the smaller businesses so that they have  a chance to  also get into that developers market.So basically we are in  Kenya  to show that the smaller business are  export ready ".He added.

Their goal is to  get different  agencies to work together, share programs, share learning tools and opportunities.

They want to build a cross border trade relationships especially for the smaller businesses.The exhibitors from SEDA agency    included: www.botebowines.co.za , www.darlingsweet.co.za , www.ezeepap.co.za , www.hapzas.co.za , www.paanewater.com , http://andre6462.wixsite.com/preppaz , www.greenbuds.co.za , www.isivunofoodcompany.co.za , masiemojela@hotmail.com , www.supplementssa.com , www.lieda.co.za

Their hope is  that the African continent will develop together and create more wealth by sharing what each country has to offer. Both of them agree that there is  a lot of opportunities between South  Africa and Kenya that can be explored to grow both economies. 

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