The use of co-operatives as a strategy to grow SA’s small business sector is the focus of this edition of Business Day Spotlight.
Host Mudiwa Gavaza is joined by the team from X-Source — Mbulelo Singapi and Manfred Hintermair. X-Source is a consulting firm, specialising in small business development.
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The firm argues that co-operative business structures can transform and grow small businesses in SA to be a more formidable force.
According to Hintermair, the model has proven to be the most successful form of organising small and medium-sized businesses in international markets such as Germany.
These structures see SMEs pooling together their resources to delegate secondary and tertiary responsibilities, such as marketing, the purchasing of expensive equipment, training or lobbying for legislative support.
The rationale is that by working as a collective, small businesses can have greater market power and influence, helping with growth and sustainability.
Singapi says taxi associations in SA are proof of how powerful such collectives can be. The challenge is convincing the government to create frameworks for more sector to organise themselves as such.
Through the discussion, the team highlights the tenets of co-operative governance in business; history of such structures in SA; success seen in other markets; challenges in making such structures more widespread; and efforts to change the status quo.
• Business Day Spotlight is a MultimediaLIVE Production.
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