Entrepreneurship Archives - Page 4 of 6

It took a year for customers to smell the coffee

Aug 15 2017 16:14 Liziwe Ndalana

Gcobani Gogoba and his girlfriend, Ntombizodwa Skuza, started selling four cups of coffee a day from the boot of their car. Today they sell about 200 cups a day. (Pic: Zukile Daniel, News24)

Cape Town – After working in the hospitality industry for four years, Gcobani Gogoba started toying with the idea of having his own coffee selling business in the townships.

The idea of bringing the kind of coffee sold in the city centre to the townships started to haunt him.

But many fears clouded his dream.

“You think of getting robbed and killed, you think it won’t work… of leaving the job that you love… so many fears in front of you that make the dream not so clear,” the 29-year-old entrepreneur told Fin24 at his coffee shop in Philippi Village.

His first coffee station was and still is operated […]

Estie2017-09-30T10:53:19+02:00September 30th, 2017|2017 Case Study, Entrepreneurship, Recources, Syllabus Topics|

China’s burgeoning ‘sharing economy’ has eyes on Africa

Opinion 23 July 2017, (Melanie Peters)

Photo taken on May 29, 2017 shows a person using phone software locating the shared car in Handan district, north China’s Hebei Province.

The sharing economy, which originated in 1970s in the U.S., is growing rapidly in China and has brought great changes to people’s life providing more economic, verified and convenient services.

CHINA’S sharing bubble is expanding. A quick scan of a QR code with a smartphone rents you just about anything, from bicycles and cars, to offices and homes.

Consumers worldwide show a robust appetite for the so-called sharing economy, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers pinned the platform’s worth at $335 billion in the next decade as travellers opt to rent a spare room on Airbnb or use Uber or Didi Chuxing in China.

The term “sharing economy” was coined in Silicon Valley, where computer coders shared programmes for free. Investopedia […]

Estie2017-07-27T14:17:48+02:00July 27th, 2017|Entrepreneurship, Environments, Recources, Syllabus Topics|

The Iceberg Illusion of entrepreneurship

Downloaded from http://www.chrispercival.co.uk/ on 18 June 2017

Estie2017-06-23T15:36:52+02:00June 23rd, 2017|Entrepreneurship, Recources, Syllabus Topics|

Are you an entrepreneur?

40 Signs You Have What It Takes To Be An Entrepreneur

There are two types of people in the world – entrepreneurs and everyone else.

Entrepreneurs are folks who create things. Entrepreneurs are folks who live on their own terms. Entrepreneurs are a special group of people who have a passion for solving a certain problem and then create something that fixes it. You might have what it takes to be an entrepreneur but never really knew if it was a possibility.

You may have had thoughts about starting your own business but never quite made the leap from the 9 to 5 into entrepreneurship. You may have thought of various side hustle ideas but never brought them to life. You may have second guessed whether or not you had what it takes when in reality, you had all the right signs. In this […]

Estie2017-06-23T15:35:24+02:00June 23rd, 2017|Entrepreneurship, Recources, Syllabus Topics|

16 of the worst things about doing business in South Africa

Thanks to Carolyn Clelland from Grace College in Hilton for sharing this article

A recent report published by the World Economic Forum sheds light on some of the barriers companies face in conducting business in Africa.

To capture the concerns of business leaders, every year the WEF conducts the executive opinion survey, asking business leaders around the world to rate the factors they consider most problematic for doing business in their country.

In 2016, access to financing was again considered the most problematic factor for doing business in Africa, followed by corruption.

These two factors have topped the list every year since 2012. However, tax rates emerged as the third-ranked concern, a significantly higher priority in 2016 than it had been in the past four years.

Rising in the list of concerns for African executives, albeit not yet ranking as particularly severe, are foreign currency regulations and difficulties in innovating, the WEF said.

“The […]

Estie2017-05-30T19:34:38+02:00May 30th, 2017|Entrepreneurship, Environments, Recources|

Revenue needs to be driven with great customer experience

Revenue needs to be driven with great customer experience

29 MARCH 2017 – 12:23 PM LYNETTE DICEY

According to a recent Forrester Report, titled “Drive Revenue with Great Customer Experience, 2017” many customer experience (CX) professions are challenged when it comes to finding a connection between CX and growing revenue.

The report analysed revenue potential from improving CX in 13 industries that Forrester covers in its CX Index and provides data that CX professionals can use to build a case for investing in CX. In every industry analysed Forrester saw positive revenue potential from improving CX.

According to the report, there are four industry-specific factors that shape CX revenue models.

The first is to find out what the barriers are to switching from one service provider to another. For example, if customers are charged for switching, they’re unlikely to move, despite poor customer experience.

The second factor is relationship value. Forrester’s model looks at the size and […]

Estie2017-04-20T20:18:05+02:00April 20th, 2017|Entrepreneurship, Environments, General management and CSR, Marketing|

Lessons in entrepreneurship and leadership

04 APRIL 2017 – 11:49 AM LYNETTE DICEY

The most recent Sunday Times Top Companies Leaders on the Move event, in association with Johnnie Walker, took place on the same day SA awoke to the news that respected finance minister Pravin Gordhan had been axed, plunging the country into an uncertain future. On an unusually sombre day, it was perhaps appropriate to have an in-depth and meaningful discussion about leadership.

The first speaker of the day was entrepreneur Lebo Gunguluza, a Dragon investor on SA’s Dragon’s Den television show. He said that any position of leadership is tricky when you consider all the different stakeholders you need to satisfy. As an entrepreneur, he said, clients are essentially your employer, and the successful entrepreneur understands that he or she needs to ensure a good working relationship with even the most difficult client.

But what happens when the client’s values don’t align with your own? Does […]

Estie2017-04-20T20:17:19+02:00April 20th, 2017|Entrepreneurship|

Entrepreneurs: A new mind-set needed

While there are fears that employment equity provisions may be stifling the emergence of black entrepreneurs, schools are also battling to teach business-startup skills

16 MARCH 2017 – 07:07 AM STEPHEN TIMM

Amiena Hartley (31) runs two hair salons. But eight years ago, after completing a six-month entrepreneurship programme, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do.

“I had no experience in hair. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to be a hairdresser,” she says.

Instead of starting a business right after graduating from the Raymond Ackerman Academy of Entrepreneurial Development in Cape Town, she opted to first gain experience in the sector while doing a three-year hair-care course.

In 2015, after undergoing a year-long incubation programme run by the academy, she used her own funds to buy a salon where she had been working and formed her Hair Corp brand. Last year she tapped a R50,000 grant from the National Youth Development Agency to buy […]

Estie2017-04-20T20:15:27+02:00April 20th, 2017|Entrepreneurship|

Digital trends: how 2016 will inform 2017

Digitally transformed businesses will investigate artificial intelligence, and are likely to embrace chat to streamline customer service, writes Anton Moulder

What are the digital business trends that will influence your business in 2017? Digitally transformed businesses will investigate artificial intelligence, look at Bitcoin’s blockchain, are likely to embrace chat to streamline customer service, and will put what makes sense to the customer — rather than the business — at the centre of services design.

Artificial intelligence

The year 2016 was the year when everyone explored artificial intelligence (AI), but 2017 will be the year that local companies put budget into, and start using basic AI. For those who have not fallen down the AI rabbit hole or seen Westworld, the aim of artificial intelligence is for machines to replicate human intelligence. This means they can sense their environment, and use autonomous, rational “thinking” to do something or to reach a goal.

Tech monoliths like […]

Estie2017-04-20T20:13:42+02:00April 20th, 2017|Entrepreneurship, Environments|