Business Development Services (BDS) Forum

The 6-month BDS Cycle Approach

Tailor, Aden

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• The 6-month BDS Cycles

  • Situation analysis and Action planning

  • Linkage to BDS providers

  • Follow-up and supervision

• The 6-month BDS cycles in Senegal

  • Approch

  • Results of the first two cycles

• BDS with Medium Enterprises

  • Working with selected BDS facilitators and business consultants

  • Create a fund for non-financial services in collaboration
    with financial institutions

  • Our BDS training experience with the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia

• Documents for download:

  • BDS workshop in Ethiopia (document

  • BDS workshop in Yemen (document for download)

 
The 6-month BDS Cycle Approach  [top]

The demand driven 6-month BDS cycle approach is a participatory method comprising of situation and problem analysis and action planning (one month) and the implementation of services to overcome the identified business constraints (five months). The business owners are assisted by BDS facilitators of partner organizations to identify their main business constraints and to suggest own solutions. The BDS facilitator assists them with refining the owners' proposals and forwards additional problem-solving service interventions in collaboration with public and private BDS providers.

Procedure: Every BDS facilitator identifies 15 businesses for a six-month BDS implementation period. In the first month discussing problems and solutions (needs assessment) in the next five months based on an action-plan supporting the businesses to solve their constraints. In the next 6-month cycle another 15 businesses are identified for further support. The number of BDS facilitators and businesses supported depends on the number and capacity of partner organizations involved.

The situation analysis overview for 10-15 enterprises contains the following issues:

By the help of a situation analysis overview, the facilitator documents the situation and problems of e.g. 10-15 operators and transfers it to a five-month action plan:

Filled example of situation analysis and action plan see BDS approach - short profile for download on www.bds-forum.net/download.htm (toolbox)

Type of support: Depending on business owner’s needs - marketing research, product development, business planning, accounting and cost calculation, access to finance, support for administrative problems, tax problems, premises, trade fair participation, export-import procedures, research for equipment supply, linkage to technical trainings, organizational development of business associations and chambers etc.

BDS providers: Main task of the BDS facilitator is not to solve the business constraints by himself but to link to competent professional BDS providers, such as training centers, marketing specialists, trade fair organizers and chambers of commerce etc.. Small support activities, e.g. initiate and follow up a simple cash book implementation can be done by the BDS facilitator himself but important problems will only be solved in collaboration with professional public and private service providers.

Follow-up and supervision: If problems of some enterprises could not be solved within the 6-month period, the partner organization will assign one of the BDS facilitators to leave the normal BDS cycles and to take over only those entrepreneurs from the previous cycle who need further support. We call these facilitators "follow-up" facilitators. If the partner organization has a lot of BDS facilitators, then it should assign the best one to leave the direct business support and to take over the supervision of the BDS facilitators. We call him BDS team leader.

Monitoring and Evaluation: All businesses involved and type and number of support activities are documented in the initial situation analyses and action plans of the BDS facilitators. At the end of the 6-month cycle, facilitators write a simple report on their achievements:

Project staff will write a summary of the businesses involved and type and number of support actions achieved (make an Excel sheet overview). Overall impact monitoring is done once per year by an independent local consultant (see product 5: M+E for projects). In addition, partner organizations can organize specific SWOT meetings with entrepreneurs involved in order to analyze impact of their support given (see product 6: M+E for partner organizations).

Results: 500 BDS facilitators of 20 partner organizations in Ethiopia supporting more than 9,000 businesses in two 6-month BDS cycles per year (see www.bds-ethiopia.net).

24,000 artisans and crafts supported together with the Federation of Artisans and Crafts in Mali.

Follow-up of CEFE start-ups in Tunisia in all regions of the country together with the Tunisian Manpower Agency (see www.bds-forum.net/tunisia).

Because of sustainability, BDS facilitators should be identified from existing staff of partner organizations. These staffs are not very experienced and have only a low level qualification profile. Therefore permanent follow-up and on-the-job training in the first four BDS cycles is necessary.

 
BDS cycle approach in Senegal [top]

Une équipe composée du coordinateur des services d'appui (PEJU)
et de 18 conseillers des organisations patronales

• Association des Femmes pour la Promotion de l'Entreprise (AFEPES)

• Chambre de Métiers de Dakar et Union Nationale des Chambres de Métiers

• Conseil National des Entreprises du Sénégal (CNES)

• Mouvement des Entreprises du Sénégal (MEDS)

• Union Nationale des Commerçants et Industriels du Sénégal (UNACOIS)

a réalisée la solution des problèmes prioritaires de 401 entreprises sélectionnées.

The BDS cycle approach on enterprise level and on business organization level is published in detail on the www.senegal-entreprises.net/action.htm webpage:

• L'approche de services d'appui aux entreprises

• Les 2 premiers cycles de 6 mois de services d'appui en action

• Organigramme

• Exemple de services d'appui aux entreprises

• Exemples d'appui institutionnel aux organisations patronales

• Résultats des 2 premiers cycles

• Etudes de succès

• Site web d'entreprises, d'organisations patronales et de communes

• Bulletin hebdomadaire: "Actions d'appui"

• Documents à télécharger

 
BDS with Medium Entreprises [top]

The above mentioned 6-month BDS cycle approach can be adapted not only to micro and small enterprises but also to medium size entreprises. The BDS cycle approach can be trained to staffs of private and public institutions and organizations for intervention to micro an small enterprises as well as to higher qualified business consultants for interventions to medium enterprises.

The problem is not the approach but the question of sustainability: who will pay AFTER project's intervention business consultants with higher qualification but also with higher financial claims? We know that the commercial BDS approach which asks for full payment of BDS services by the business owners themselves, has failed for interventions to micro and small enterprises. That is why our approach is a moderate approach together with private and public institutions on cost-sharing and not on cost-recovering basis.

Will the commercial BDS approach work for medium enterprises? Until now - after eight years of commercial BDS approach dissemination - we still do not have a real success of commercial BDS approach even to medium enterprises with the necessary outreach and impact.

Fact is that for consultancy to medium enterprises we need higher qualified staffs. That is why for BDS interventions to medium enterprises we developed the following options:

• We know that some staffs of SME development institutions have the necessary educational qualification and professional experiences to be trained for BDS with medium enterprises. It is a question of selection, training, training-on-the-job, supervision and follow-up before, during and after the 6-month BDS cycles. We are convinced, that between the 500 trained BDS facilitators in Ethiopia we could identify at least 50 who will be able to deliver the necessary facilitation for discussion and identification of business problems as well as to link businesses to the respective BDS providers in order to solve the problems. This option has a good expectation of sustainability because these staffs are already paid staffs of partner organizations.

• We also know that a large number of business consultants are not qualified in the beginning and have to be trained in the same way as the above mentioned staffs. Some business consultants will have a high qualification for BDS with medium enterprises and can do a fine job. The question is that of sustainabality: who will pay them? Two options are presented as follows:

  • Business consultants will be paid by the medium enterprises themselves. Medium enterprises have a higher capacity to finance strategic business development services. That is why there will be some possibilities for BDS delivery on commercial basis. But we fear that this approach will not have the necessary outreach to thousands of enterprises.

  • That is why we discussed with banks and micro-finance institutions in Ethiopia and Ghana on our proposal to create funds for business consultancy services:  [top]

All banks interviewed on this issue have answered positively because non-financial services for their loan clients would improve the performance of the businesses and increase the repayment rate. More details on this approach for download: fund-for-non-financial-services.doc 120 KB

Our BDS Training Experience with the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia  [top]

The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) asked us to organize a business counselling training to their so-called "Outreach officers", bank staffs involved in follow-up of business credit clients. Obviously, one of the major reasons for the failure of the business community in honouring its debt repayment is absence of apropriate business skills to effectively run its business. Hence, the provision of counselling will bridge the gap.

The participants - 16 officers of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, staffs from the product development division, workout loans division and credit monitoring section - got trained to provide basic support to their customer entreprises by themselves and facilitate the intervention of commercial and non-commercial BDS providers and other agencies. After the field experience, participants wrote down the situation analysis overview of seven medium and large scale enterprises and transformed it to a five-month action plan.

Have a look on the complete report for download including the filled situation analysis overview of seven medium and large companies on pages 5-10 and the filled action plan on pages 14-18. A detailed situation analysis overview of seven companies has been worked out by the participants as well as concrete BDS activities to solve the identified main business constraints:

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Tailor, Aden

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