[South Africa Business Week] Why SA entrepreneurs are not thriving
A study carried out on more than 1000 entrepreneurs in South Africa revealed that entrepreneurship in South Africa is not thriving, despite the fact that South Africa is one of Africa's strongest economies. The research was done for 4 years and it has been dubbed as the largest South Africa's entrepreneur research.
There has only been small progress in terms of business survival rates, revenue increases and more women entrepreneurs. So, what is really needed forth is for the stakeholders in the ecosystem to pull together and make major trajectory changes that support all entrepreneurs, both men and women from seed through to scale-up stages.
Key challenges for entrepreneurs include: inability to raise funds, finding customers, wearing too many hats followed by lack of guidance, slow sales, customers paying late and unpredictability of business conditions.
In the telecommunications sector, Avanti Communications Group, a satellite operator providing Ka-Band satellite data communications services across the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, has announced the official launch of its South Africa-based operations as of 29 August 2018.
This development will provide affordable high-speed satellite broadband to connect homes, SMEs, schools, enterprises and mobile operators across Sub-Saharan Africa, especially in rural and remote locations where terrestrial networks are limited.
In matters enegy, the South African Government has approved a draft to increase renewable energy generation. Jacob Zuma, the former President, had proposed expanding the nuclear power sector by adding new nuclear capacity in excess of 9 gigawatt.
Jeff Radebe, South Africa’s Energy Minister, announced this week to the press that the cabinet had approved the updated Integrated Resources Plan (IRP 2018) which will increase renewable energy capacity and add only a minimal amount of new coal.
In the Banking industry, the South African Standard Bank is set to launch first of its kind social campaign on Twitter to show that inspiring and positive tweets can be turned into tangible educational tools with the help of 3D printing and laser cutters.The bank has started the #GoodFollowsGood hashtag to drive the campaign.
From August to October, Standard Bank will launch the Tweet Machine, a mobile industrial container that acts as a factory of sorts by linking the global reach of social media to 3D printers and laser cutters, which will produce 1000 set square and ruler kits for grade 6 learners. This is the first installation in the world to turn tweets into educational tools.
This week has also seen four fintechs that are shaking up financial servicesbeing in South Africa named as finalists in AlphaCode’s recently launched accelerator programme, AlphaCode Accelerate. AlphaCode is Rand Merchant Investment Holding’s (RMI) incubation, acceleration and investment vehicle that identifies, partners and grows early stage financial service ventures.
AlphaCode was founded to seek the next OUTsurance or Discovery. The first four fintech businesses selected for the AlphaCode Accelerator programme are: Entersekt, Livestock Wealth, Click2Sure and Invoice Worx.
