Raizcorp CEO Honoured Guest at Incubation/Enterprise Development Exhibition with Dr Rob Davies, Minister of Trade & Industry

On 22 February 2013, Raizcorp CEO Allon Raiz was an Honoured Guest of the American Chamber of Commerce in South Africa at an Incubation/Enterprise Development Exhibition, at which he participated in a panel discussion that included Dr Rob Davies, the Honourable Minister of Trade and Industry.

Click here to go to the American Chamber of Commerce in South Africa's website

Exhibition

The exhibition, which took place at the American Consulate in Sandton, showcased what is being done by American companies in terms of incubation and/or enterprise development.

The Minister of Trade and Industry was present to view and discuss the various exhibits with the business representatives, and he participated in a panel discussion along with other experts, including Allon Raiz.

The purpose of the initiative was to profile the contribution of American business to South Africa; to profile the projects that the businesses are involved in; and to enable companies who have not yet embarked on similar projects to benchmark successful and sustainable projects.

The Honourable Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies

Panel discussion

The panel discussion was based in the ongoing debate surrounding the value of business incubators within society. The Minister indicated that the government is supportive of incubators and the role they play in fostering the establishment and growth of small enterprises. This support is backed up by the recent announcement that the Small Enterprise Development Agency (seda) of the Department of Trade and Industry (dti) would be launching 250 incubators in eight provinces nationally. Over the past six years, seda has been able to establish 1 210 small businesses with its current 38 incubators in various sectors.

During the panel discussion, Raiz indicated his views on business incubation in South Africa. “Raizcorp defines business incubation as a combination of both physical and non-physical support to selected entrepreneurs offered by providers who have a provable intervention methodology that creates results.”

Raiz said that Raizcorp uses both growth and sustainability to determine the success of the businesses that participate in its programmes. “The way that many incubators determine their success is to look at how many of their businesses still exist three years down the line. Raizcorp uses a different metric, however. We look at four metrics: turnover, profitability, net asset value, and jobs.”

Overall, Raiz is positive about the role that incubators play in creating economic growth, but he sounds a note of caution: “In many instances, incubators are deemed to be the silver bullet, but they are certainly not. They are part of the answer, provided they are designed properly to achieve the desired results. Many incubators are not.”