SA Future Trust, Raizcorp to develop township manufacturing entrepreneurs

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“Raizcorp and the SA Future Trust are aligned in wanting to tap into opportunities to create jobs and value chains within township environments. Over a period of three years, we will work with a range of small businesses on yearlong programmes. These businesses have the potential to scale on a very intensive, high touch programme to increase skills, provide mentorship, and offer the backup of Raizcorp’s access to market,” said Bridget Fury, Interim Head of the SA Future Trust. “Once the pilot project has been tested and refined in Alexandra and Tembisa, it can be replicated in other townships across South Africa.”

Raizcorp focuses on incubation and business acceleration for entrepreneurs by assisting them in scaling their businesses. The company has 21 years of experience in an incubation environment in which approximately 80% of the entrepreneurs it has supported come from or are based in township or rural contexts.

“Townships across South African suffer from low levels of local economic activity. However, with the right support and skills development, small businesses in these areas have the potential to build sustainable and highly profitable businesses,” stated Allon Raiz, founder and CEO of Raizcorp. “Through Scaffold we will identify high potential entrepreneurs who possess basic manufacturing skills and we will enhance these skills to the point where fewer people can replicate them. Businesses can be built around these skills by “scaffolding” the individual’s business skills, management and leadership capabilities.”

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Scaffold is a year-long, high-intensity business-development programme designed to help entrepreneurs scale their businesses in a sustainable way by offering a broad range of support and learning. It aims to accelerate sustainable scaling so that businesses can become significant suppliers to large corporate clients. Some of the standard scaling issues the programme will address include capital, staff, process and consistent access to market. Programme participants will receive the benefit of a hands-on, practical entrepreneurial learning curriculum, as well as individual mentorship in the areas of leadership, management, personal development, finance and sales.

By enhancing these skills and scaffolding the growth of the businesses, Scaffold will allow entrepreneurs to advance their manufacturing capability to produce higher-value items that have lower levels of competition, and thereby, enhance the businesses’ ability to scale.

Raizcorp will source potential candidates through scouting, advertising in community media and social media advertising targeting manufacturing entrepreneurs based in Alexandra and Tembisa. A technical assessment will also be carried out to assess the entrepreneurs’ current technical skills and identify the degree of technical upskilling required.

Interested applicants for the Scaffold Programme are invited to apply on www.raizcorp.com/entrepreneurs/. Recruitment will take place in December 2021 and January 2022, and the project aims to kick off sometime in February 2022.