Informal Sectors offered cheap accounts.

know which bank to trust with your money.

Zb Bank if offering cheap accounts to all informal sectors. This is  the only bank ever in Zimbabwe that has ever offered cheap account. An account with Zb Bank is $2 only.However it must be mentioned that there are conditions that goes with it.According to their Public relations officers, Thamsanqa Mdlonga, a student at Nust said that there conditions that go along with them are that the business has to constantly deposit money and they are allowed to withdraw at least three times a week.

special initial allowances offered to SMEs.

In 2006, The reserve bank in partnership in stakeholders developed the financial inclusion framework in order to improve financial service to the marginalized in remote areas of the including SMEs.

According to the number of SMEs assessing loans from institutions from $5,658 as at 30 January 2013 to $9,067 as at 29 February 2014,representing a 60% increase. The value of loan disbursement from 208,66million as at 30 June 2013 to 211.02 as at 29 February 2014.

Special Initial Allowances are granted to any SME in terms of section 15(2) (c) as read with the fourth schedule paragraph 9 (g) of the Income Tax Act [Chapter 23:06].

An SIA is a capital allowance which ranks as a deduction. It has the effect of reducing the taxable amount and therefore the tax due from a business. This incentive enables the business to retain more of its earnings which can then be re-invested to grow the business.

Employment creation through SMEs

It must be mentioned that SMEs have contributed in the economic growth of Zimbabwe since the econimic melt down. The situation worsened in 2002

 The Bulawayo Light Engineering Project provides an avenue for small-scale entrepreneurs in Bulawayo and the broader Matabeleland Province to create economic self-reliance. This is achieved through a service centre where artisans hire time on precision machinery, as well as Business Shop, where capital goods are then sold.

The project is developing and testing a model for the creation of sustainable jobs and incomes among small-scale and marginalised artisans. It also seeks to increase opportunities for entrepreneurs to create or expand their businesses by making small-scale and affordable capital goods readily available. Ultimately, the model will be documented, shared and disseminated widely if successful.

employee at the first day of work

UNDP is supporting the institutional capacity of the Social Fund for Development.

Greater and wider benefits will, however, go to indirect beneficiaries. These consist of small enterprises that will purchase equipment and capital goods produced by artisans to start their own businesses. 20 small-scale capital goods consisting of maize grinding mills, peanut butter makers and candle moulds were sold during the year under review.

The main benefits consist of increased incomes for artisans and small producers that buy capital goods and start their own businesses. Some of the most successful artisans have reported monthly incomes in the region of £450-£1,000 per month. Jobs have also been created for unemployed people especially youth and women. These groups usually suffer more unemployment levels than men do. Each artisan who is a regular user of equipment provided by the service centre employs at least one assistant artisan. The project has therefore contributed to the creation of at least 200 sustainable jobs. 

According to the New Zimbabwe, the is need to promote collaboration between SMEs and large producers to create joint ventures, market access and buy-back arrangements, as well as promote skills transfer, technology development and marketing expertise.  However this will increase small business access to procurement opportunities and include them in the government supply chain. These opportunities will provide experience and income for local small businesses and thus enhance their potential for growth, development and employment creation.

How to bulletproof your business from a bad economy.

2008 Econom,y, Zim Dollars losing value .

Even in times of economic growth, it’s challenging to grow a business.It is important to have a good leader at the first place. Research shows that people placed in positions of authority often become less mindful of others’ feelings and needs. Meanwhile, those in subordinate roles devote immense energy to watching and interpreting the actions of leaders. These tendencies make for a toxic tandem, which is only exacerbated during a crisis.

 Sutton, a Stanford professor, provides a useful framework to get bosses focused on what their people need from them most. In a situation where people feel threatened, a good boss finds ways to provide more predictability, understanding, control, and compassion.

empty shelves during the 2008 economy.

Predictability. Give people as much information as you can about what will happen to them and when. Preparation will reduce their suffering, and they can relax in the meantime—as Londoners during the blitz were able to do when the air-raid sirens were silent. It is also important for a company to stay positive at all time. It is necessary to minimize work- space injuries by meeting  with the employee and offer him a light-duty job the worker can do while he's healing rather than to leave the injured to consult with the attorneys.

It necessary to keep your customers happy by telling them what they've gained from using your products or services in presentations or informal conversations, your sources can encourage others to use your products or services hence it will keep them coming back.Also there is need to reduce vacation.

Role of Banks in promoting growth.

Banks play a major role in the growth of SMEs. It must be mentioned that one is able to acquire a loan in Zimbabwe to improve his of her business on the run.Companies like CB Bank also cater for these SMEs by proving them with free bank accounts. CB  is among the few banks left that is helping Informal sector.However, in partnering with the NUST public relations student  they will host a campaign at NUST next week Monday on the 23th of March.

  At Standard Chartered, you will have a team of dedicated professionals helping you with every aspect of your business needs: from making your banking transactions easy and convenient to providing you with business credit. Whatever your business needs, you can count on our support for providing the right material to build and develop your business.

A Boutique that came to exist through the help of banks.

CBZ has objectives and they are as follows  The objective of this department is to provide financial services to the economically active informal sector that are unable to access mainstream facilities while creating employment and alleviating poverty at cost effective rates.

Procedures to acquire an accounts allows one to constantly deposit  money at-least three times a day.

sMEs are recognised as one of the key drivers of ZimAsset and an engine for economic growth by virtue of their contributions to employment and wealth creation, income generation and strategies ,linkages with large companies across economic clusters.

 Kingdom bank used  Promotion of small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Zimbabwe through Microfinance Institutions(MFIs)

Government has in the past made various facilities available for SMEs through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the National Social Security Authority. However, the private sector, financial institutions, life assurance companies and institutional investors have been conspicuous by their absence.

Commercial banks such as Barclays Bank of Zimbabwe used to have a Small Business Unit (SBU) which they closed down over a decade ago.

 

How to protect your Business

Improving your business’ though  digital security is easy – it’s not complicated or expensive to take basic steps to protect your business' and your customers' sensitive information online.

  The toolkit features a Cyber Security Warrant of Fitness – a simple checklist of the basic measures businesses need to have in place to protect their business, staff and customers online, and provides some tools and templates that can be adapted to suit individual business circumstances. Just like operating a motor vehicle, it is important to give your business periodic cyber safety inspections so that you have the right foundations in place and can feel confident that you’re protecting your business, staff and customers online

 According to the Guardian , these are some straightforward measures a business can take, such as raising awareness of the issue among staff and installing anti-virus software. But after the basics have been implemented. 

protect your business from your competitors and the rest of the world.

There are other way is how to protect your data: If you store your data in an external data centre, you’re reliant on an external provider. As a company, this means you hand over a certain amount of control to a third party. That’s why it’s important to take your time when looking for a suitable provider – do not be tempted for cost reasons to choose a dubious solution. After all, you get what you pay for.

These blog also seek to help business in protect your winning ideas from copy crook with out paying thousands in court.It is important to register  your brands names. logos because copy rights exist automatically.To add on one must make sure that competitors do not steal your idea and one must keep an eye on his market place and nip infringement in the bud as soon as it happens

A panacrea for Zimbabwe`s economy.

Many   people in Zimbabwe who lost their jobs through company retrenchments and dollarisation . Accoding to the News Day,Most of them operate  as SMEs like but are not formally registered as businesses, and therefore are not contributing to the fiscus in the form of taxes.

But, small and medium enterprises have been said to be one of the answers to Zimbabwe’s economic quagmire, yet they lack capital and bank loans in order to grow and become bigger businesses.

 According to  SithembisoNyoni tthe former minister, SMEs including those operated by vendors and those in rural areas should be legalised and helped to market their products locally and internationally to ensure they became fully-fledged businesses.

This is important as it will enable fast flow of cash from company to company and also dependence.

According to the Zimbabwe independent In August last year President Robert Mugabe addressed that reality, hailing their significant contribution to the economy and to the generation of livelihood, albeit often insufficient, for millions of the populace.

works seek employement to SMEs  after they were retrenched

The paper identifies that SMEs have been a major source of livelihood income for many households in Zimbabwe, especially those whose heads lost their jobs during the economic downturn of 2000 –2008. The SMEs sector has also provided necessary competition in some sectors of the economy, especially in the manufacture of furniture, which has kept the prices within the rich of many.  It is high time that a bank which caters only for SMEs. According to Nyasha, C , the head; Reseacher and sale at Cbz holdings Money is not the only answer to seeing SME growing and employing more people. Policy is. If government policy supports the establishment of SMEs, and rewards big businesses that have SMEs in their value chains, money will never be an issue. Most SMEs are failing not because they don't have money but because they don't have assured contracts

obstacles faced by the SMEs

SMEs have been played a critical role in the economy of Zimbabwe, however we must not underestimate the fact that do have challenges that still hold them back in improving the economy of Zimbabwe.

Some of the challeges are that SMEs face lack of access to capital from financial institutions, lack of collateral which bankers insist on having if they are to give loans to SMEs,absence of business track record due to the fact that most SMEs are informal businesses which sometimes do not even bank their sales revenues, perceived lack of business management skills and lack of know-how on how to raise capital from banks.

Clive Mphambela in his paper Burden of Compliance in SME , Growth said although formalisation might contribute to the national economy, the problem was that even with the most formal businesses, very few of them followed all rules governing formal enterprise behaviour, adding on the extreme scale of informality some businesses will also follow none of the rules set for formal businesse.

According to Sunday Day other issues hampering the SMEs growth were said to be high fees, especially in the mining sector which demanded huge amounts for registration purposes, as well as high costs encountered in clearing goods for import and export. 

He is also quoted in the Southern Eye paper saying, the vast majority of these MSMEs are operating as unregistered businesses. There are, however, significant gains to be made by partially or fully formalising one’s operations for both the economy at large and the businesses themselves.

Unregistered businesses forced to take their business to the streets due to high rates.

Finantial expects see potential

THE potential growth of Small to Medium Enterprises is yet to be fully realised in Zimbabwe, a financial expert has said. The managing partner of Baker Tilly Gwatidzo Chartered Accountants, Mr Phibion Gwatidzo, said this recently during the launch of the firm’s Mutare office.

 Mr Gwatidzo said in Zimbabwe, SMEs were now the major employers, but most of them were owner-managed and lacked ethical business management practices to ensure sustainable growth.

He urged SMEs to become more professional and use independent financial services for specialised help to ensure sustainable growth.

“SMEs are now the economic growth hub of this nation considering the continuous collapse of the big companies due to recapitalisation failures in the wake of the liquidity crunch in our country.

he further added “We, therefore, need to come to terms with the fact that we are now an SME market. However, the SME players need to also move from primitive ‘tuckshop’ business practices and be more professional to expand their businesses and increase returns''.

SMEs are likely to produce thousands of dollars with good managment

 More generally the development of SME is seen as accelerating achievement of wider economic and socio-economic objectives, including  poverty alleviation.

The recently launched BAZ/ZEPARU established that:"Banks should thus engage the informal sector players and embrace the idea of fostering partnerships and clusters. Under this arrangement informal sector players, through the assistance of banks, pool their resources by bringing their capital and expertise together to make a meaningful investment''

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How is the govermnent improving SME`s

The lead story in The Sunday Mail business section this week was quite revealing. It gave an in-depth account of the goings on is the SME/informal business segment of the economy.According to the Zimbabwe daily news ,online- paper Zimbabwe has generally been alert to the importance of small businesses in the economy but there is not much that has been done to harness this sector so that it can make a meaningful contribution.

The population in this picture is for the residents who are seeking cheap clothing's from SMEs

In terms of ownership, the SME sector is already indigenised with 95% of informal/micro

enterprises, 75% of small enterprises, and 65% of medium enterprises owned by indigenous

entrepreneurs. Conversely, estimates reveal that 5% of the micro, 25% of small and 35% of medium enterprises are owned by foreigners. 

One of the key assumptions that shaped my thinking around indigenisation was the belief that most people preferred formal employment to self-employment.

It is important to also mention that the government has also  given them special initial allowances. Indigenous SMEs entrepreneurs are not economically empowered facing serious lack of capital and industrial fact. The picture below will elucidate the information above.