12 SMMEs settled into new Riversands incubation hub

19th August 2015

By: Natasha Odendaal

Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor

  

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With 12 small, medium-sized and microenterprises (SMMEs) safely tucked away in incubation and a few more in the process of being absorbed, the Riversands Incubation Hub hopes to envelop another 56 before year-end.

The hub, located in a new commercial park near Diepsloot, had the capacity to nurture and develop up to 150 entrepreneurs and small businesses at all stages of development into fully fledged, formal businesses.

The incubator, developed last year by Century Property Developments and National Treasury’s Jobs Fund, currently housed an upstart bakery, a flooring firm, a printing company, a fashion and sewing school and a technology and construction firm, besides others.

Since incubation officially started in a staggered approach in March, the incubated companies had doubled turnover and extensively widened their market bases, Riversands Incubation Hub CEO Jenny Retief told Engineering News Online on Tuesday.

Dubbed the “Rolls Royce” of the development programmes offered by the facility, all the businesses under the full on-campus incubation programme were individually mentored, coached, supported and incubated over a period of three years, with rent heavily subsidised, as they were transformed into a viable business with long-term sustainability.

The small businesses would gain access to technical support, markets, on-site funders and training and networking, in addition to supplier development programmes and offtake agreements, before “graduating” and potentially moving into a still-to-be-developed nearby commercial park with limited support and less subsidised rent, to further develop into the market.

The hub also assisted the SMMEs to apply for, and comply with, quality standards and negotiate lower cost for services, such as logistics.

The incubation also enabled the SMMEs to leverage each other’s resources and capabilities, with the printing business, Maake Media, providing businesses cards and signage to other nearby companies, and an in-house bakery providing catering services for the hub’s conference centre, which was rented out for functions to generate additional funds to finance the incubation activities.

The Riversands hub also aimed to provide the SMMEs a market and supply chain link to established enterprises and the associated benefits of growth in trade and business activity, with “big businesses” mentoring SMMEs and assisting them to build up their products and services offtakes until they formed a major part of their production.

The location of the facility also provided direct access – and a potential market – to the extensive mixed development construction activity circling the hub.

Rhulani Mabasi, owner of Apple Floors, a garage outfit for ten years and new resident of the hub, said he aimed to leverage the residential developments to provide wood, laminate and carpet flooring, wallpaper, curtains and blinds, kitchen and built-in cupboards and décor as the new residents settled into the area.

Fellow incubated SMME House of Hemp converted the stalk and seed of Cannabidiol- or CBD-containing hemp into fabric, rope, paper, boards for cupboards, insulated roof tiles, bricks, insulation and other building materials for commercial and industrial use, as well as using the extracted oil for bodycare products, such as masks and lotions, besides others.

Meanwhile, SMMEs that did not meet the stringent criteria of the Riversands hub could potentially partake in the incubator’s off-site Grow Your Business programme, which, in effect, readied the start-ups for incubation.

The full incubation programme required SMMEs to be majority black-owned, show viability and potential for growth, create an economic opportunity for the surrounding area, fit into the hub's structure and show entrepreneurial characteristics and capacity to execute. The businesses would also be analysed on a ratio of cost and risk to benefit.

The Grow Your Business programme, in which the hub aimed to absorb double – or even triple – the number of SMMEs it had in its stable currently, offered training and workshops, group business coaching, networking opportunities, sector-specific business support services, selected business support services and access to on-site funders.

For the innovator with a business idea but no clear path to follow, the hub offered the Future Entrepreneurs programme, which enabled access to training and workshops and relevant skills development, tools for the business world, building on the business idea and developing of a business plan, the registration and start of business processes and access to on-site funders.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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