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Business Support and Skills Development
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This branch supports small and new businesses and helps people develop the skills needed to manage successful businesses.Some of the ways in which it does so are through the City’s Business Support Voucher programme and Small Business Week, and through the development of strategies and guidelines such as the Skills Development Strategy (under development) and the Business Support Facilities Management Guidelines Framework (PDF, 135kb). The branch also supports Cape Town’s Smart City Strategy.
The Business Support Voucher Programme
 The City’s Business Support Voucher programme offers support services to people who have started new businesses (known as ‘start-ups’), or people who run what is known as a ‘survivalist’ business – a business that consists of the business owner only or established newer businesses.People who qualify for the programme must be:
- over the age of 35
- able to demonstrate a commitment to starting their own business (if they have not started on already); or
- owners of an existing businesses with the potential for job creation and growth; or
- start-up entrepreneurs who can attract sub-contracts, government procurement and joint ventures
- women and the disabled are a particular target groups
The support services include training in mentoring business skills, management and financial skills or relevant technical training. The City itself does not provide the training, but gives beneficiaries vouchers that they can exchange at professional and accredited business training providers. Entrepreneurs who access the training vouchers are monitored by RED (Real Enterprise Development) Door centres, in order to evaluate the success of the programme.
How to apply for a Business Support Voucher
Business Support Vouchers are available through three RED (Real Enterprise Development) Door centres in Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain and Atlantis, and through the Business Place eKapa in the city centre.
For more information about The Business Place eKapa, visit the website, or the offices on Ground Floor, 45 on Castle, Castle Street, Cape Town; tel: 021 422 2797; e-mail ekapa@thebusinessplace.co.za.
For more information about the RED Door initiative and its services and programmes, please visit the Western Cape Province provincial government website.
The Business Support Voucher Programme brochure is available in English, Afrikaans or Xhosa.
How can the Support Voucher help you?
Josline Arnold is owner of Josline Driving School in Mitchells Plain, and is particularly grateful for the way in which the Small Business Voucher Programme assisted her in drawing up a Business Plan. She used a run a survivalist business, catering only for her friends and family. ‘It’s expensive to have to ask a private consultant to draw up a business plan, but I didn’t know how to do it myself,” she says. With a business plan drawn up through the Voucher Programme, she qualified for a bank loan, which further enabled her to purchase additional vehicles to boost her business. Arnold now employs three staff members, and her business has grown tremendously.
Booley Granite in Delft is another business to have benefited from the Voucher Programme.“Through the RED (Real Enterprise Development) Door initiative, I received a business support voucher that helped me to have a business plan drawn up, says company owner Ismael Booley. "My company has now survived a critical financial phase, as my business plan enabled me to access a loan, which I used to purchase modern industrial tools. We could not cope with the old industrial tools we were using,” he says. “We bought 15 modern industrial tools, and as a result our customer base has expanded.” Apart from being shown how to draw up a business plan, RED Door also helped Booley’s company get registered properly. “If it was not for the RED Door, we could not be where we are today,” he says. “The company has grown and we have created employment for other people.” |
Small Business Week |
Small businesses conduct the bulk of business in the Western Cape. The annual Small Business Week (a City of Cape Town initiative, supported by the Provincial Government of the Western Cape) is a multi-day event that facilitates access to markets, finance and business opportunities, skills development workshops and business linkages, through business opportunity exhibitions, business linkages programmes, seminars, workshops and networking events. Entry is free.
The City of Cape Town has hosted seven annual Small Business Weeks (SBW). Anyone who owns, manages or is interested in business is welcome to attend this event. No business is too small to benefit. The results of the SBW 2007 survey suggest that the event is gaining momentum, with attendance figures up from 4 142 in 2005 to 7 690 in 2007.
The e2007 event, a partnership between the City of Cape Town and the Provincial Government of the Western Cape had some R722 million worth of business opportunities on offer.
The survey showed that most business owners attended the event because they wanted access to information about business (34,4%), networking (12%), how to start a business (10,6%), how to expand a business and access to finance (both 9,5%), skills development (5,9%), franchise opportunities (4,7%), how to improve a business (2.3%), business support (2,3%) and tender opportunities (1,1%).
About 72% of participants in the survey felt that their expectations of the event were met. More that 80% of delegates said it was the first time that they had attended SBW and more than 90% said they would return next year.
“Small Business Week is one of the major programmes presented by the Department of Economic and Human Development which focuses on and benefits entrepreneurs and business people in t Cape Town,” says Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Development and Tourism, Councillor Simon Grindrod. “Small Business Week contributes to the achievement of four of the six business support policy objectives of the City. It also contributes to the spread of business opportunities.”
For more information about Small Business Week, please visit www.smallbusinessweek.co.za. |
Smart City Strategy |
Cape Town’s Smart City strategy aims to use ICT (Information & Communication Technology) to improve the efficiency of service delivery and the administration of the City, to better communicate with and deliver services to citizens and businesses, and to bring about social and economic development.
Practically, this means providing access to computers and the internet; encouraging people to develop the skills needed to use these tools effectively, and providing relevant local content in the form of information and online applications.
Access means making available computers that are connected to the internet, and networks to support this.
Skills means encouraging individuals to acquire appropriate computer literacy skills, as well being able to use the computers as a platform for other types of training and skills development (including basic alpha-numeric literacy, economic literacy and life skills, and business literacy). Skills are acquired through experience and more formal training. City employees are the first people to benefit from the programme. | |
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