Page 26 - IDC

6 CITY PRESS, 9 OCTOBER, 2016

business in any start-up business is: ‘Think big, but start small’
Carmen Busquets: For me, the winning strategy

UNDER CONSTRUCTION Nhlanhla Dlamini’s factory in Johannesburg will soon be humming with activity when it begins operations in March 2017 PHOTO: VIC BRUMMER

A Opportunities TALK
PROJECT IN TO US
Are you a young
PARTNERSHIP person starting out in
WITH THE business? Tell us your
story. Email us at
IDC out of obstacles using ‘Young business’
mybusiness@idc.co.za
in the subject
line

mart entrepreneurs look for opportunities SA needs to produce more of its own consumer goods “I’m firmly committed to South Africa – to try to
where others only see obstacles. That’s the grow the economy, create jobs and lower inequality,”
belief of Nhlanhla Dlamini, a young says Dlamini.
industrialist who has hit on the idea of as a primary way to ignite economic growth. Young “One of the bigger influences on my life was growing
taking offcuts of ostrich, game and up seeing Nelson Mandela coming out of prison and
Scrocodile meat and processing them into black industrialist Nhlanhla Dlamini has accepted becoming president, and others who sacrificed their
high-end pet food and treats for the overseas market. lives for democracy. The sacrifices of this generation are
“It’s basically taking waste products from abattoirs far smaller than those of previous ones, so it’s up to us
and converting them into premium, value-added the challenge, writes Christina Kennedy to stabilise the country and make it prosper.”
products, using proteins that aren’t available in other Dlamini believes the “formula” for a good
markets,” explains the brains behind Maneli Pets. entrepreneur is someone who can “spot an opportunity,
His new venture is securing Industrial Development build good teams and who has business acumen from
Corporation (IDC) financing to buy machinery and formal education or work experience”. The last point is
convert a factory in Sebenza near Edenvale, east of DLAMINI’S 3 BIGGEST CHALLENGES TO SUCCESS not something that can be brushed aside, he says, as
Johannesburg, into an export-grade facility, which is due selling your business to funders and your product to
to begin production in March next year. the market require a certain amount of business savvy.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, so the FUNDING BUILDING A ENERGY AND Fortunately, there are small business “incubators”,
saying goes, and Dlamini is excited about his new pet There are two parts to the GOOD TEAM RESILIENCE such as the Awethu Project, that “build on the raw
food venture using meat byproducts. The factory will 1 funding conundrum. The first is 2 When you are starting a small 3 Anyone starting a small business ingredients” or qualities that a budding entrepreneur
create 40 new jobs (semi-skilled, unskilled and debt, which is getting money business, there’s more work to be needs to be mindful of the peaks has, and add extra skills and knowledge to help him or
management) when it opens for business, with up to from organisations like the IDC done than there are people, so and valleys that entrepreneurship her get ahead, and this is where Dlamini obtained some
300 positions being created in its first three years of and from commercial banks. everyone has to be 100% right brings. From week to week, day of the seed capital for his first business.
operation. Unfortunately, South African for their role. to day, hour to hour, you can be Passionate though Dlamini is about South Africa, he
Maneli Pets is an offshoot of the Maneli Group, a banks are risk-averse, which is a Finding great black talent to on top of the world and then in “loved my time abroad” and is a firm advocate of
diversified food company that looks for opportunities to stumbling block. work in your small business is the depths of despair. travelling, broadening one’s horizons and learning from
build businesses in the agricultural and green energy The second is equity. Most extremely difficult because You have to find ways of the world. In fact, it was while he was overseas that he
sector, while boosting black entrepreneurship. Maneli is black entrepreneurs don’t have dynamic black professionals are coping with this roller coaster – spotted business models and innovations that he
his mother’s clan name, and he named his business in an uncle they can ask for money. all snapped up by private or be it spiritually, actively or thought could be applied to South Africa.
honour of “one of my biggest supporters”. It is difficult for entrepreneurs to government jobs that pay them interpersonally – otherwise you “South African society is very insular, and we need to
The backdrop to this is that South Africa has get out of the starting blocks well above the price points that a will burn out quickly. find new ways of working better. Ideas come from a
relatively few black-owned food production businesses, without an angel investor or small business can afford. diversity of experiences and interactions – you can
and government is actively promoting agroprocessing family to fall back on. come up with good ideas about business and life if you
and the manufacturing sector in general to spur push your boundaries beyond what you usually do,”
economic growth. says this former Rhodes Scholar and Goldman Sachs
The country needs to make products to consume Global Leader.
locally and also to export, instead of importing them. “We also need a greater level of ambition. Americans
As such, the local food production and processing arena suburb of Mofolo South. His family moved to the south turned out differently.” are famous for being their own biggest supporters, and
is ripe for the picking – with funding entities such as of Johannesburg, but his parents continued to run a He enrolled at Wits University for a BCom and a it’s a good skill to be your own biggest fan and be
the IDC willing to step in to invest in worthwhile small shop in Orlando East, meaning “I went back and postgraduate diploma in management, and started wildly ambitious – don’t let your mind constrain your
projects that create or expand manufacturing capability forth between Soweto and suburbia”. reaching for the stars: the US and a Harvard Business ambition before you even start. South Africans are quite
in the agriculture value chain. He got through much of high school and all of School MBA beckoned, and he worked at McKinsey & conservative and need to be more open to taking risks.”
“In Africa, the bulk of food is grown by multinationals university thanks to scholarships, and is acutely aware Company locally and abroad. In between, he completed Dlamini is not naive in his thinking – he knows that
and there are opportunities for black entrepreneurs in that many of his peers, gifted and intelligent though his MPhil in international development at Oxford South Africa’s manufacturing sector has many challenges
this space,” says Dlamini animatedly. “With the country they were, did not have the same opportunities. University in the UK. when it comes to labour, infrastructure and logistics.
experiencing slow growth, we need a new generation of “I was one of the lucky ones,” he reflects. “Had I His thesis was on youth unemployment in South “But there are pockets of opportunity and the
industrialists to step forward.” not had access to scholarships and had my parents Africa – knowing that he wanted to come home and challenges are not insurmountable,” says this natural
Dlamini’s pioneering spirit was born in the Soweto not made the sacrifices they did, my life would have make a difference. optimist. “It’s how you navigate them that matters.”

LET’S KEEP BUILDING THE ECONOMY TOGETHER

NHLANHLA DLAMINI Nhlanhla The 2000s, until the crash of 2008, was a time of great investing more in igniting growth.
projects@citypress.co.za Dlamini economic prosperity and growth, with an economic There are more than 20 million South Africans
PHOTO: VIC growth high of 7.10% in the fourth quarter of 2006. younger than 36 and one in three of them don’t work.
As a young, passionate South African, I am deeply BRUMMER There was an emergence of black business leaders in The Gini coefficient is 0.77, making us the world’s most
concerned about our stalled economic growth, our all sectors and the black middle class swelled. These unequal society.
unemployment rates and our country’s desperate were my formative years, this is the South Africa I want The big questions are: What are you and I doing to
inequality. to rekindle. change the status quo? What choices have you and I
All these malaises affect young people more deeply, Since 2009, many upheavals at home and abroad made to shift the needle? All of us call on government
those younger than 36 who should be empowered to have stalled our growth, and we all need to do our and the private sector to make the changes needed
move the needle and take our democracy forward. part to restart it. The growth rate for the last quarter when we have so much of the agency in our own
I am 32 years old and I left my management to the end of June last year was 0.6%. hands.
consulting job because I knew that I couldn’t do Quite rightly, the call goes out to government to do The National Development Plan says that by 2030,
enough in that role to eradicate inequality, create jobs something. Government has put in place good policy – 90% of new jobs will come from the small and
and fuel the economy. policy that is inclusive and that seeks to send the medium-sized enterprises. Could you start a business
That said, it was risky and difficult for me to switch elevator back down for those who were left behind. and employ others? Could you take a pay cut so that
from a corporate job to entrepreneurship because, as a However, government’s greatest challenge is you could employ another two people?
young person growing up in Soweto, I was socialised to implementing all these well-meaning policies and it This is why I left my corporate job to start a
revere an office job, which represents stability. needs to do much more to follow through on this. business. Not to invest in other businesses, but to
I took the risk because I felt that the time was right. The private sector, too, has been called on to do become a black industrialist and to get my hands dirty
I realised that if I didn’t take the plunge, I would never more. From a neoliberal perspective, our private sector manufacturing goods and building the economic
do it and forever wonder if I had missed my chance to is fulfilling its mandate of maximising shareholder capacity of South Africa.
leave a meaningful and lasting legacy on the economic gains. My partner, Siphamandla Ndawonde, and I are here
landscape of South Africa. It is a tall order, but a reasonable one given South to roll up our sleeves and work. I am not depressed by
Our democracy’s economic progress so far can be Africa’s history of economic exclusion, that our the state of the nation, but I am concerned and so I
roughly divided into three periods. From 1994 until corporate citizens should be doing more to help in the am acting to change our collective economic future.
2000, the priority was to stabilise our fledgling daily work of eradicating inequality, nurturing an Will you join me?
democracy with the goodwill of the world behind us. environment that creates jobs and they should be . Dlamini is the managing director of Maneli Group