Local entrepreneurs facing unique challenges

NELSPRUIT – Residents of the Lowveld suffer from being too big and too small at the same time, according to a former resident who is doing research into entrepreneurship. Mr Clayton Williams (29) is doing his MBA at the Graduate School of Business of the University of Cape Town. His thesis is titled ‘Job creation through entrepreneurship in the South African context’.

According to Williams, South Africans are too apologetic about the contributions they can make on a global level. “South Africa suffers from a case of being too big and too small at the same time. Interestingly, Nelspruit has from the same problem.”

Williams was recently invited to attend the annual conference of the African Leaders Network in Mauritius later this month. It will be the fourth annual gathering of the community of young, dynamic and influential leaders in Africa’s.

“South Africans need to understand that we have a lot to learn and ensure that we are continually learning, but at the same time we need to realise that we can contribute a lot,” he said.

Williams, head product development at Raizcorp, a Sandton-based company that aims to develops entrepreneurs with branches in the country and in Angola.

He said he found that South Africans also had the fear of failure. “According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, our country has the lowest entrepreneurial activity on the continent. One of the reasons cited for this is our fear of failure.”

Yet, the problem of the narcissistic CEO is also pervasive. “This is the owner of a comfortably sized business who develops a sense of self-made success, and the business either stagnates to no longer contribute to gross domestic product growth or job creation, or it implodes due to poor management.”

Thus, to encourage successful entrepreneurship that contributes to job creation, business owners must realise that they should continue learning.

Aside from Williams’ interest in growing businesses: small to medium and medium to large, his research also focuses on promoting an awareness of what the private sector can do to be part of the solution. “Government should provide the framework for promoting entrepreneurship and most South Africans would be surprised at how well this has been done. The problem comes in execution, which is really be the role of the private sector.”

However, he cites labour unrest as one of the biggest challenges faced by businesses. Engage him on twitter @tweetclayton.