Martina Biene<\/a> said the automotive corporation was happy with its decision to partner with entrepreneur training company Raizcorp.<\/p>\nShe said the numbers generated by the Volkswagen (VW) Business Support Centre, established with Raizcorp in Kariega, spoke for themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have invested more than R95m to date in empowering local entrepreneurs, and in turn they have generated a turnover of R733m in the Eastern Cape.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is what we call a good return on investment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe centre has supported 178 entrepreneurs, and 30 of these companies have been brought on board as suppliers to VW Group Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur beneficiaries employ almost 2,000 people, and they have created 680 new jobs since participating in the support centre programme.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biene said the programme established with Raizcorp was in line with VW\u2019s continuing drive for efficiency, while never forgetting the vital human ingredient.<\/p>\n
\u201cThough our vehicles have changed significantly over time, one thing has always remained a constant for the makers of the people\u2019s car, and that is our understanding of how important people are. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are celebrating 75 years of building Volkswagens in South Africa this year, and without the people who build, sell, own, and drive our cars, as well as the business owners who support and supply us, this momentous milestone would not have been possible.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut today we celebrate another milestone \u2015 the 15th anniversary of the VW Business Support Centre, which we established in partnership with Raizcorp in April 2011.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the car giant had embarked on the journey with Raizcorp after recognising the need to support business in Kariega and Nelson Mandela Bay.<\/p>\n
She said the support centre was one element of the corporation\u2019s \u201csupplier support strategy\u201d, and it had more broadly contributed to the Automotive Industry Transformation Fund, aimed at financing black-owned companies in the auto sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur support for this fund has resulted in more than R1.7bn of market access opportunities to these businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Babalwa Lobishe lauded the support centre\u2019s work, saying it aligned with the objectives of the national government and the metro.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe next phase of South Africa\u2019s growth will require even stronger collaboration between government, industry and communities. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt will require us to deepen localisation, expand supplier development programmes, support industrial innovation and ensure that small businesses are integrated into high-value sectors such as automotive manufacturing. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe support centre provides a practical model of how these objectives can be achieved.\u201d<\/p>\n
Raizcorp founder and CEO Allon Raiz described growing up in Durban, a brief stint living on the streets, and his failed hot dog factory enterprise.<\/p>\n
The pivotal turning point for him was when his benefactor convinced him a business that did not work was not a problem \u2014 unless the entrepreneur gave up.<\/p>\n
He said the re-entry rate, or average number of times failed entrepreneurs tried again in the US, was a healthy 3.6, whereas in South Africa it was just 1.14. <\/p>\n
Ironically, part of the reason for this was that in South Africa funding was often sought and obtained too early, masking the lack of a business model and important skills.<\/p>\n
Several graduates of the support centre programme spoke, including Phumza Gwaleni, who described how it had transformed her small construction services firm Nhaka Legacy Group, which she established six years ago.<\/p>\n
Gwaleni said she learnt the basics of business as an eight-year-old hawking fruit and vegetables door-to-door for her mother in the village where they lived.<\/p>\n
Equipped with this know-how, when she grew up, she started Nhaka, but it was limping along.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was losing money. I knew how to sell, but I didn\u2019t know how to put the business together and ensure that it was delivering real profits.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday after doing the support centre programme with Raizcorp, our profits are at 15%. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd we have grown from a BBBEE [broad-based black economic empowerment] level one construction company to level five, where we can now tender for projects worth up to R10m.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Herald<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The elusive skill of successful entrepreneurship was under the spotlight at an event in Kariega hosted by Volkswagen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":998689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3094],"tags":[51,3187,3134,277136,277137,277135,16,15,58870],"class_list":["post-998688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entrepreneurship","tag-business","tag-entrepreneurs","tag-entrepreneurship","tag-kariega","tag-raizcorp","tag-support-centre","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-vw"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116675901263491843","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=998688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/998689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}