Success Fuelled By PartnershipProperty Point, the Department of Small Business Development (DSBD) along with the Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA) have joined forces to drive market access to a legion of high potential small black-owned businesses.

When SEDA invited Property Point to apply for funding through their incubation fund structure, the pilot project became a game-changing partnership. The aim of the project is to provide incubation funding of R6-7million annually over three years. The Enterprise Incubation Programme (EIP) under the Department of Small Business Development awarded Property Point funding of R5 million for a 12-month programme to incubate 15 businesses.

"The goal of the collaboration was to drive market access to a cohort of high potential small black businesses," says Desigan Chetty, Head of Operations at Property. "Point Property Point's demand led-approach to ESD suited DSBD's objectives to ensure that businesses are able to access markets after going through a capacity building programme.

"Property Point's objective is to establish a strategic relationship with government to assist in contributing to the sustainability of small businesses, reducing dependency and ensuring that businesses are enabled to competitively access market opportunities," he explains.

Access to markets, job creation, and sustainable small business growth

The major objective was to access markets, ensure job creation and sustainable growth of small businesses. Each business was taken through a diagnostic assessment and a bespoke business development map was produced.

"One-on-one mentorship was a successful tool to align the objectives of the owners as well as the businesses," adds Desigan. "In addition, the focus was on profiling the businesses, enabling them to access markets through a solid sales pipeline process, acquiring machinery to increase operational capacity and also accessing technical certifications which are often a barrier to opportunities."

The power of partnership

The biggest success story would be that Property Point has managed to exceed all expectations of DSBD, according to Khutjo Langa, Property Point's Monitoring and Evaluation Manager.

"The impact targets were achieved in the first quarter and we have been pushing the boundaries to increase the ROI of the funding. We have added one more business to the initial set target of 15 businesses because we saw a need and a perfect fit for that business to benefit from this partnership."

Khutjo believes that there is certainly a need for collaborations of this nature, "especially now that we have seen the results that can be achieved if things are done correctly. South Africa needs both private and public to work together to solve the ills of our country. These kinds of collaborations allow easy flow of resources and accountability, thus ensuring that everyone does what is expected of them."

Working with the DSBD

The small businesses that are part of the DSBD intake will form part of the Property Point alumni network and we will still maintain contact through our monthly Entrepreneurship To The Point networking engagements.

"The DSBD team was supportive and provided oversight to ensure that programme objectives were met," says Desigan. "The Director General, Edith Vries, attended the launch of the programme and engaged with each of the 16 businesses on the programme individually."

"We have learned a lot from this engagement," says Khutjo. "We were stretched but proved that our ten years of existence and proven track record qualifies us to be able to take on such projects and succeed."

Bradley Kodi, Programme Manager at Property Point agrees. "The experience has been amazing thus far, by no means easy, but a beneficial relationship of interchangeable learning between both organisations," says Bradley. "I strongly believe this public-private partnership can be considered a success – our impact speaks for itself."