MODULE 0: COURSE INTRODUCTION AND CONTEXT

Context-The-Tale-of-Two-BusinessmenDownload

INTRODUCTION

“If I only had one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution” – Albert Einstein

According to Statistics South Africa (2019), 29% of the South African population are unemployed, with 55% of the population living below the poverty line. Small Medium and Micro Enterpise are deemed to be the largest net job creators, however, despite their impact in terms of job creation, it is estimated that 70% of SMMEs in South Africa fail in their first five to seven years of existence (Bushe, 2019). Furthermore, according to Bowler, Dawood and Page (2007) more than 70% of all South Africans are employed in the small business sector. With the relatively high business failure rate, for SMMEs to be successful and effective, development is an avenue to be undertaken.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) South Africa (2014) state that there are numerous reasons as to why SMMEs fail, many of which investigate various elements of a business to identify major reasons for SMME failure. In summary, much of the elements can be broadly categorized under the theme of complexity. SMMEs and the growth of SMMEs is complicated and complex due to the number of financial and non-financial variables that affect an SMME.

To this end, SMME development training has become crucial to helping entrepreneurs overcome business challenges and through our experience have helped a number of entrepreneurs break the failure ceiling through this course and as such, cannot wait to help you reach your entrepreneurial goals.

COURSE CONTEXT

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“Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals”. – Jim Rohn

WELCOME

It is a great pleasure to welcome you to this course. In order that you share our enthusiasm about this course, we urge you to read this overview thoroughly. Refer to it as often as you need to since it will certainly make your learning journey a great deal easier and pleasant.

PURPOSE OF THE COURSE

The purpose of this module is for small to medium sized entrepreneurs to acquire a foundational grounding along with accompanying skills in basic business fundaments. This Business Fundamentals course is a walk-through journey from having no understanding of certain business aspects to becoming a compliant business with the ability to withstand business complexity. This course will equip you and your business, even your employees with a fundamental understanding, templates, toolkits that can be applied to your business and provide you with an overall business health diagnostic and growth plan tailored for your business to ensure that your engagement in this course is not only theoretical, but practical with tangible results.

COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of this module the learner should be able to:

  • Understand strategy and develop a high-level one-page strategic plan
  • Understand sales and be able to be open and close a sale
  • Understand marketing and be able to establish an online business
  • Understand the basic concepts of finance and how applicable they are in your business
  • Understand the importance of compliance and become supply chain compliant
  • Understand your business health and journey with your mentor to supply chain compliance and readiness

COURSE FRAMEWORK

The framework of this course is visually represented below:

COURSE STRUCTURE

The structure for this course will comprise of the following:

  • Pre-Course Knowledge Assessment
  • Live Theory
  • Class Activity
  • Post-Course Knowledge Assessment
  • In-Session Business Health Diagnostic and Roadmap Development

CONCLUSION

We hope you will enjoy your learning journey of this course! We are certainly looking forward to being your partner in this endeavour. Best wishes and enjoy the course!

Watch the Context Video for Day 1 of The SMME Business Success Fundamentals Programme below: