Lessons learnt - BDS Forum

Business owners' problems cannot always be solved by a limited classroom training system, because course systems often focus on standard and supply driven services and less on tailor made demand driven services.
An effective BDS system with course and training activities should be completed by a direct advisory or business consultancy system on business level.
Direct advisory services can give us an idea about the concrete problems of micro and small enterprises (MSE) instead of studies and analysis that give us an idea about sector problems in general.
Advisory or business consultancy systems have to be prepared by a concrete needs assessment on individual business level. In this needs assessment, business owners will be encouraged in a participatory manner to identify their main problems by themselves and to formulate proposals of solutions.
Sector studies can provide a lot of data on the MSE sector, they are useful and can give us an idea of the main sector problems in general, but cannot replace concrete talks and assessments on individual business level which finally will guide us to concrete business services delivery.
Individual needs assessment and BDS deliveries are not necessarily limited in effectiveness and outreach. With a larger number of facilitators or BDS providers, this system can have an outreach impact rather wide, e.g.:
- 70 facilitators of the Tunisian manpower agency advise 10 enterprises each in a three month action plan - 70x10x3 = 2,100 operators per year).
- All German chambers of trades keep a business advisor busy who gives individual and concrete advises to the businesses of their regions.
- 500 Ethiopian BDS facilitators of 20 partner organizations supported about 9,400 businesses per year.
Individual needs assessment results can be generalized on group or sector level. But in this case, group advisory and sector approach have been identified and implemented bottom-up and not top-down. This will be a better way to carry out a business services delivery system responding on the real needs of operators.
BDS should be market oriented in terms of cost sharing and cost recovery of its services. But there will always be services that will never attempt a 100% cost recovery but only cost sharing. So we have to accept that BDS cannot only be developed with commercial business providers but also with other private non-profit organisations with diversified financing (cost sharing services plus donor funded activities) as done by private NGO. Some services will even have to be provided by public structures.