top of page

Capacity Building...

The firm, any firm, needs internal strength to be able to tackle external threats and convert opportunities.

 

It is widely reported that Uganda is the most entrepreneurial country in the world. It is added, however, that most MSMEs do not live beyond three years, leave alone surviving beyond the founder to the next generation.

 

We also find that most MSMEs that think they are ready for the market or for investment actually have not asked the most important internal questions: Internal roles and organs. Cash flow. Budgets and Projections. Vision and long term goals. Governance. Statutory requirements. Market focus and competition. Comparative versus competitive advantage.

Our customised institutional capacity building packages will empower the entrepreneur to grow the business. Such services include:

 

  • Business Health Checks: to establish the assets, needs, challenges and opportunities, to enable guided development of the best way forward. For associations, cooperatives and other such groupings we will use the Producer Organisation Assessment Tool.

 

  • Institutional Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation: our in house experts have accumulated experience in institutional planning and have drawn strategic plans for a number of clients. We engage your team to draw strategic and short term business plans, and help you focus, gain insight and share with you our diverse experience to draw the best lessons winning strategies. Our toolkit is rich with the best industrial practices that help us benchmark your business for greater heights. 

 

  • Policy Review and Analysis: At IRIS, we know that policy design defines the business environment, and therefore we focus on helping organisations to develop appropriate policies. Our Policy review services include collaborating with policy makers and influencers and over time, we work with government institutions like Ministry of Agriculture, Uganda Investment Authority, Private Sector Foundation, Enterprise Uganda, and the Parliament of Uganda among others. At SME level, we are convinced that however small a business may be, developing basic and flexible procedures is very important if systems are to influence the way business is done. 

 

  • Training:

We are trainers. We facilitate trainings of trainers as well as end users of products. Our trainings are customised to the organisational needs. Our training experts have over 25 years of experience both as trainers and entrepreneurs.  Our major training areas include but are not limited to the following:

 

  • Farming as a Business (FaaB): Agriculture is the backbone of Uganda but for many reasons, it is done at subsistence level. IRIS has been influencing agro entrepreneurs to do business on the farm rather than survival. In this training, agro based entrepreneurs are shown the distinction between traditional and commercial farming, the mindset change, and farming for the market. The Projected Income Statement is our powerful tool for revealing the business in farming. The FaaB simulation game makes the FaaB training practical, and leaves trainees yearning for change.

 

  • Management of Producer Organisations: We train producer organisations,  and Producer Cooperatives on basics of organisational management.   Our package includes managing and people in organisations, producing for the market, basic finances for producer organisations, planning, and business development.

  • Developing a Culture of Excellent Customer Service: our capacity building starts with training the internal customer of the business and key areas of focus include work etiquette, attitude change, learning oriented working, business relations, and business communication. On the external customer, we help SMEs analyse their actual markets, where they sell, where their customers are, and what they want. We conduct customer care spot checks/surveys  to helps  SMEs  consolidate and expand their loyal customer base.

 

  • Preparing For Game Change for those leaving employment and starting out in entrepreneurship and new innovations. The transition from formal and largely predictable employment to entrepreneurship is often fraught with uncertainty and fear leading to poor decision making. The uncertainty and unpredictability of venturing into business leaves many worried. We help ease this transition by providing tailor-made solutions aimed at helping new entrepreneurs make fewer mistakes and hasten their steps to financial freedom.

 

  • Ready for Finance (R4F) training: We know that small and medium businesses cannot grow faster without external financing for investment. We therefore work with such entrepreneurs to prepare them to access external finances.  We help business pay attention to small details, conduct “what if” analysis, alternative financing options, the business systems, the financial ratios, and controls within a business.

 

  • Business coaching, Counselling and Mentoring:  We focus on the individual entrepreneur as well as on the enterprise, offering continuing business counselling and mentoring, developing entrepreneurial competencies, identifying opportunities and helping them prepare bankable business plans. We help SMEs develop systems; i.e. financial control systems, management systems, and human resource systems. Our job is not done yet, we follow you up to check the progress and troubleshoot challenges 

 

All capacity building initiatives are preceded by a needs assessment that could take the form of a business diagnostic or an organisational capacity assessment in order to ensure that training programmes respond to specific needs of the business / entrepreneur being supported.

 

We provide business coaches and mentors (online and face-to-face) to accompany entrepreneurs through the sometimes turbulent waters of starting up a business, building, sustaining and growing it.

bottom of page