Supporting small businesses in South Africa

Through our ten-year programme, we are supporting women and black-owned small enterprises to become part of South Africa’s mainstream economy.

By upskilling business owners across South Africa, we have contributed to the creation of over 800 job opportunities in the past ten years - supporting the inclusion of people in rural areas, young people and women into the workforce.

Our supplier development commitment sets out to support small black-owned businesses to compete and thrive in the marketplace.

Boosting skills

While many small businesses have the technical capabilities necessary to tender for business with South Africa’s large private and state-owned organisations, they often fall short of proving that they can meet the consistent and reliable quality standards that are expected of suppliers.

Our programmes address this gap; boosting the skills and implementing international quality management systems in women and black-owned small businesses, helping to drive economic and social transformation. To date, 54 percent of suppliers through our programme are black female-owned businesses.

Connecting businesses

We have made a ten-year commitment with the Department of Trade and Industry to support a range of small companies that provide services in areas where there is a skills shortage.

In particular, the project identifies, screens and develops small and medium-sized businesses across South Africa that supply goods and services into the construction, infrastructure and oil and gas sectors.

We are providing quality system advisory services, delivered through a combination of monthly workshops and one-on-one mentoring sessions with groups of small business owners across the country.

In addition to providing the small businesses with the skills and tools to develop their management processes, the workshops also enable participants to collaborate, developing their networks and business opportunities.

Creating job opportunities

Over the ten-year span of the project, we have taken almost 100 small businesses from basic business compliance to ISO 9001:2015 certification, allowing them to compete in their target industries.

In a country with an official unemployment rate of 29 percent, the project made a significant contribution to job creation as the small businesses have been able to bid for and win close to ZAR13 million of work that required ISO certification.