Business Development
Services (BDS) Forum
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BDS-Forum News
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February 2007
Contents:
New BDS Internet Portal for Senegal
A new BDS website has just been published for small and medium enterprises (SME) in Senegal: www.senegal-entreprises.net. The website design is user friendly offering almost all information on the first navigation level.
On the left navigation bar please find directories of SME support institutions and financial institutions in Senegal as well as business associations, chambers of commerce and business consultants. Under strategies you will find the main legal rules and regulations, national micro-finance strategies and manuals on capacity building of partner organizations and monitoring and evaluation.
On the horizontal navigation bar please find the virtual library, links to other BDS related websites and the Sitemap.
On the right navigation bar you will meet all necessary information on business creation, business registering, bookkeeping and cost calculation, business planning, import-export, trade fairs, guide for accès to credit, taxation procedures and support for business associations.
Give us your comments please info@senegal-entreprises.net
Nouveau Portail Internet de l'Appui au Développement des PME du Sénégal
Un nouveau site a été créé portant l'objectif de collecter toutes les données concernant l'appui à la Petite et Moyenne Entreprise au Sénégal: www.senegal-entreprises.net
Sur le menu à gauche vous trouverez les répertoires des structures d'appui aux PME, des institutions financières, des associations professionnelles, des Chambres de Commerce et de Métiers et des bureaux d'études visant la petite et moyenne entreprise.
Le site présente aussi des programmes et stratégies d'appui aux secteurs privé et financiers et la formation professionnelle. Dans la librairie des documents à télécharger (études sectorielles, stratégies d'appui etc.) sont à votre disposition.
Le menu à droite réunit les différents thèmes autour de l'entreprise Sénégalaise tels que les lois et règlements, l'enregistrement de l'entreprise, gestion de marchés, plan d'affaires, taxes et impôts et un guide à l'accès au financement.
Veuillez nous envoyer vos commentaires info@senegal-entreprises.net
Example of BDS with Medium size Enterprises
The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) asked us in 2003 to organize a business counselling training to their employees 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 was to 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 and facilitate the intervention of commercial and non-commercial BDS providers and other agencies. The workshop gave training on the 6-month BDS cycle approach comprising of field visits to seven medium and large business companies, elaborating a situation analysis overview and an action plan (see 6-month BDS cycle approach for download product1-six-month-bds-cycles.pdf). During the 5-day workshop participants worked out a detailed and comprehensive situation analysis overview and action plan. Have a look on the complete report for download:
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Dieter Gagel, Addis Ababa 2003 Example of BDS with medium enterprises |
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 not only business consultants but also 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. The option to train experienced staff of partner organizations involved in SME development has a good expectation of sustainability because these staffs are already paid and permanently employed.
The second option is to train business consultants for BDS. Most of the business consultants will have a high qualification for BDS with medium enterprises and can do a fine job. Nevertheless they need first to be trained in participatory demand-oriented needs assessment. But finally the question is that of sustainability: who will pay them after project's intervention? 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 which is the basis 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:
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Create Funds for Business Consultancy
Services It is normal practice that banks take proceeding fees or so-called “Commitment fees” for every loan application. Commitment fees in Ghana are between 2-4% of the loan amount. Our proposal is that banks top up their commitment fee by 0.5-1% - and this should be for all loans. With this 0.5-1% they open an account for non-financial services. Borrowers will get the opportunity to ask for non-financial Business Development Services. The bank will decide on each application and, if necessary select a business consultant to provide the service. Finally the consultant will be paid by the fund. |
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
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