SolaGratia Services
Business Development, Marketing & Managed Services
“And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Colossians 3:17
Business Development Services (BDS) are an essential means of supporting the development of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), which are known to create employment, generate income and contribute to economic development and growth. The BDS market must be understood before the most appropriate intervention can be determined. In turn, those interventions should focus on the critical issues of widening outreach, avoiding distortion, and maximizing the scope for viability and sustainability. Questions need to be addressed, such as: - Is there a market niche for the establishment of BDS facilitators/providers?
- Is it wiser to follow the TD or MD approach, or a mix of the two?
- What should be the nature of the intervention and duration of the initiative?
- What will be the possible exit strategy, so as to ensure long term viability?
The market assessment aims to ensure that those designing the project start by understanding how the BDS market operates, thus highlighting the constraints and opportunities and allowing interventions to be designed that focus on maximizing the key opportunities and/or overcoming the major problems. This means that the market assessment is essential in the program/project design stage.
This means that the market assessment is essential in the program/project design stage. The key focus of the market assessment is the potential and existing MSMEs themselves. Other sources include BDS suppliers (public and private), business associations (Chambers of Commerce as well as other voluntary bodies), governmental sources (national, regional, and local), NGOs, etc.
- Market overview: secondary sources of information and interviews carried out with MSMEs, BDS providers, experts, and various related organizations. This is relatively quick and cheap to undertake (typically 20 – 60 meetings); however, it relies on limited information and may miss important issues.
- Consumer survey: this involves market research methods (typically 100 – 500 companies) that can deliver broad and statistically significant market data (services used and demanded, satisfaction, improvements required, etc.). These tend to provide somewhat “shallow” information and are of limited use in underdeveloped areas where MSMEs have limited experience using BDS.
- Focus group discussions: these are a detailed and focused discussion with a group of consumers, managed by an experienced facilitator (typically three groups of 7-10 consumers each). These result in detailed information and in-depth insights into BDS markets, however, the issues discussed are relatively focused and may be biased towards micro-enterprises, vulnerable groups, etc.
- Supplier interviews: these provide an insight into the supply side of BDS and obtain providers’ perspectives. They are particularly useful in highlighting the gaps between demand and supply through in-depth interviews of suppliers and/or qualitative information collection through questionnaires.
All projects should aim to staff BDS organizations with the best available levels of expertise and professionalism. However, this must be balanced with the realities on the ground. In some cases, the best strategy may be to build up the capacities of the staff in the existing institutions, NGOs, and firms, rather than recruiting staff for the project duration. This is also likely to be the most sustainable strategy (e.g. in relation to Local economic development initiatives (LED) capacity-building projects, rather than the actual delivery of BDS); however, the aim of recruiting the best may have to be tempered by the existing human resources available in, for example, the local authorities. In such cases, the project budget should not cover the wage costs of such staff - the training and general capacity building process, together with one-off funding for it and other equipment and software, should provide sufficient incentive for participation.
Where projects must recruit staff, it is essential for the cost base, especially the salary levels, to be compatible with the locality's going rates. The high wage levels of Phare funded Business support centres (BSCs) were designed to motivate them to become established and sustainable, but resulted instead in antagonism from other partners, not least public administration, and contributed directly to the lack of viability and sustainability once project finding terminated. Local government was not willing to inherit the high-cost base such as salaries, bonuses, high maintenance cars, etc. The necessity to maintain wages in line with local norms is particularly crucial in rural environments, where the scope for recovering costs by charging is likely to be more limited.
Successful BDS projects and programs are often associated with strong leadership and management. The leadership may come from individuals, such as the head of the BDS facilitator/provider, as well as local institutions, such as the head of the partnership. Both leadership and management are essential factors in developing a vision for BDS, enhancing collaboration, removing barriers, and generally acting as champions for the successful implementation of the BDS activities. DBS projects and programs should place a strong emphasis on selecting appropriate management (providers/facilitators) and leaders (partnership) and enhancing their knowledge base and capacity.
Many owners have invested significant resources in BDS projects and programs. However, few if any, appear to be in a position to demonstrate that their activities have led directly and indirectly to desired outcomes, such as economic growth and employment generation. This is mainly because, despite statements to the contrary, there has been relatively little focus on regular, objective and rigorous analysis of impact. Yet, this is absolutely essential if failing schemes are to be improved and redesigned and successful programs and projects replicated
A business development strategy helps leaders keep their sights on organizational goals while ensuring readiness for future challenges. This is essential whatever level you are working at - be it a leader of a business unit, function, division, country, or region. A strategy is not enough; however - leaders must also build teams and manage internal and external relationships to execute the plan and build a sustainable organization. Monitoring and evaluation enhance BDS Facilitator assistance's effectiveness by establishing clear links between past, present, and future results. Monitoring and evaluation can help organizations extract, from past and ongoing activities, relevant information that can subsequently be used as the basis for programmatic fine-tuning, reorientation, and planning. Without monitoring and evaluation, it would be impossible to judge if work was going in the right direction, whether progress and success could be claimed, and how future efforts might be improved.
BDS projects often involve significant outlays, often amounting to millions of dollars in subsidies and technical assistance, depending on the size and duration of the project. The rigor and extent of resources devoted to assessing impact will need to be proportionate to the project's nature. However, projects that monitor and evaluate themselves are more likely to maximize outreach, minimize distortion and attain viability and, in due course, sustainability.
Our Services
Business Development Services are a very important means of supporting the development of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), which are known to create employment, generate income and contribute to economic development and growth.
We have an eye on what entrepreneurs and innovative corporations are doing globally, which helps us bring best practices to MSMEs and shape ecosystems.
We provide an appropriate and stable foundation and opportunities to bloom your entrepreneurial ideas by providing the best business development services. MSMEs require the best and effective nurturing and support to ensure that they withstand the competition that prevails in the industry.
We ensure total coverage of your business requirements with the help of our team comprising of both experienced and innovative minds. Investment, development and international networking of business support eco-systems players.
Scaling to the new markets, raising capital, getting clarity on business directions requires practical know-how of the business environment and market conditions. We provide various consulting services to startups, such as business model development, investment attraction strategy, expansion to new markets strategy, financial model, business plan and other services.
Market Access
Market research, Market information, Trade fairs, Product exhibitions.
Input supply
Linking MSMEs to input, suppliers, Improving suppliers’ capacity todeliver quality inputs.
Infrastructure
Storage and warehousing, Transport and delivery, Business incubators, Telecommunications.
Policy and advocacy
Training in policy advocacy, Analysis of policy constraints and opportunities.
Training and technical assistance
Mentoring, Feasibility studies, Business plans, Franchising, Management training.
Technology and product development
Technology transfer or commercialization, Linking MSMEs and technology, suppliers.
We are a specialist in the Information Technology (ICT) foundation development to support your business development strategy. Yet, ICT is expensive; however, we highly recommend AWS Serverless architecture for your business ICT backbone which provides enormous benefits for minimize your operation costs and enlarge business flexibilities.
- LOWER COSTS - With serverless, you only pay for what you use—there are no hardware costs and no costs when your services are not in use. Reduced cost is one of the main advantages of going serverless. If your services aren’t heavily used all of the time, then the PAYG ‘pay-as-you-go’ model gives you optimal resource utilization without paying for idle server time.
- ENHANCED SCALABILITY - You may want to build a viral app like Instagram or Uber, but would you risk provisioning infrastructure just in case? With serverless architecture, you don’t have to think twice about it because of its ability to automatically scale with traffic volumes. Scaling also depends on the location of users and their network connection. Serverless providers have points of presence around all users, which diminishes delays and allows apps to perform as they should, regardless of your geographic location.
- MORE FOCUS ON USER EXPERIENCE - Your team don’t need to care about infrastructures and servers; AWS will take care about features. With server maintenance out of mind, companies can dedicate more time and effort to improving the customer-facing elements. A quality UX design webpage is essential if you want to keep users engaged with your business.
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