Business development support training impacts SMEs positively; they should be trained for them to survive and gain competitive advantage.

In this competitive and fast-growing market, business support services are a sure way to help in boosting a business’s productivity.

Without the necessary expertise to handle some of the basic business tasks, a business entity can incur avoidable and unexpected costs. Tasks that are supposed to be easy end up consuming time and become costly at the same time.

This is how BongoHive Consult impacted SMEs through business support services.

Challenge

In order to promote value addition on primary produce among agribusinesses, a client asked BongoHive Consult to design a process that would identify and provide business development support to 10 growth-oriented agro-processing Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The business support services were expected to deliver a valuable learning experience to growth-oriented agribusiness SMEs.

The client was also keen to create a deal flow for a later-stage programme by developing awareness in the market and facilitating connections and learning between agribusiness entrepreneurship stakeholders in Zambia.

Solution

The BongoHive Consult team set out to design and implement an Agribusiness Bootcamp, a capacity building program for agro-processing SMEs.

A comprehensive process was designed to identify, screen, vet and provide business support services to 10 agro-processing SMEs (from a pool of 200+ candidates from across the country) through a multi-funnel approach. The approach consisted of two main stages:

• Speed-dating — 49 SMEs were shortlisted and invited to attend speed-dating sessions where the enterprises had one-on-one interviews with a panel of judges comprised of experts in the industry. At this stage, 20 enterprises were selected to proceed to the next phase.
• 5 days in residence Bootcamp — The 20 successful enterprises from the speed-dating sessions were invited to a 5-day Bootcamp. The enterprises underwent business development training by various industry experts and interacted with statutory bodies, among other key stakeholders.

This stage culminated in the selection of 10 winners who continued receiving business support from BongoHive Consult for a period of 4 months.

The support focused on the improvement of Financial and Business Management, with a revision of business strategies and setup of enterprise resource planning software (ERP).

Impact

The client gained a clearer understanding of the gaps, challenges and opportunities in the local agro-processing space, specifically those relating to SMEs. In addition, the engaged businesses received comprehensive business management support, improving their management structures, their record keeping and their business strategies. These changes led to increased sales, production and distribution for the SMEs.

Additionally, the client vetted 9 prospective candidates from the SMEs for their later-stage programming.

BongoHive Consult’s professional trainers can equip you with the necessary business development services to help your business remain afloat.