Small businesses encouraged to be creative
Micro businesses need to break the mould and try to access new markets.
THE mayor of Hibiscus Coast Municipality, Cynthia Mqwebu is concerned about the fact that small and medium enterprises are too reliant on municipal tenders.
She revealed this at a cooperative consultative workshop held at Kapenta Bay Hotel recently. She added that business owners become frustrated when there are no tenders on offer at the municipality.
“What this ultimately does is limit, or stifle, growth for that particular business. Business owners should think outside the box, there are departments besides the municipality. SMEEs should start looking at departments such as health and education to expand their markets,” said the mayor.
Mondli Ncane, who is a local economic development officer at HCM, said another concern was that there was no variety among these businesses. “What tends to happen is that a person sees a business succeed for somebody they know in their community and then they try their hand at that business themselves,” he said.
He encouraged business owners to come with original ideas and not to only focus in the towns and cities but also target the rural places. “There is a lot of room for business in the rural areas,” he emphasised.
