Crafters and small business capacity building
- Seeking Funding
The Need for Product Innovation and Business Development Skills
The development of the craft industry is a potentially powerful means of bringing job creation to thousands of people in several provinces, most especially as the interest in African art continues to grow unabated. Arts & Craft based on our unique heritage has enormous potential to provide employment and promote wealth creation most especially in South Africa’s rural areas where at least 50% of indigenous craft workers live.
However, there is a critical need to develop crafters to produce work of consistently superior quality and to effectively market their products both in South Africa (where the perception of their value is extremely low) and internationally. South Africa does not have a good reputation for delivery or quality and this has to be amended if we are to compete with India, China and Thailand – where “African art” is produced to a higher standard and to meet delivery deadlines.
South African arts and crafts have not yet reached their potential or achieved full appreciation of their authenticity and creativity. Most crafters lack the expertise to finance their work, achieve consistently superior quality or market their products effectively. Yet the potential for sustainable enterprise development that will result in poverty eradication and social and economic upliftment for many of South Africa’s disadvantaged poor, is inherent in many of these initiatives.
What is required is accessible and practical training and support that will take crafters through the process of identifying the factors that impact performance and determine which of these factors can be successfully addressed through training. This gap analysis will define current performance and optimal performance, and will make clear recommendations on how the gap between these two can be closed. Without a needs assessment up front, one runs the risk of prescribing the right solution to the wrong problem. An assessment of issues already undertaken identifies a programme logic that is graphically represented in Appendix 1.
The outcome needs to be a graded set of targeted interventions that enables any product or organisation to move from "Ag Shame!" to "Hey Wow!" status. This progression will occur on two levels – on the one hand the product market readiness will be assessed and enhanced; on the other hand the organisational development will be supported including, for example, registration, capacity, costing, accounting systems, entering the formal economy etc.
Measuring the current Organisational Readiness status and Market Readiness status of South African Producers and their Product Lines, and then supplying specifically designed and targeted upgrading interventions to enable them to gear up to be ready to supply more demanding and bigger markets, will build the internal capacity of enterprises and enable them to tap into markets.
Marketing is a vital aspect of the intervention as most rural crafters are unable, for obvious reasons, to access markets. Growing the market and awareness of quality products is obviously an additional critical component that will support and stimulate sustainable demand for these products. Participation in selected exhibitions and trade shows will increase exposure for all the initiatives and will develop the brand of GreaterGoods as a known quality traditional and contemporary craft supplier. Various marketing tools are available / being produced viz. the GreaterGood SA website, product catalogue etc. Craft workers are not employed by GreaterGoods but their products are marketed for them and they are commissioned to fill orders on demand. Training and mentoring is an ongoing aspect of the project’s partnership.
As part of the development process and gap analysis, two specific tools will be used to measure the current state of readiness and monitor the growth of organisations and their success in the future. These include: An Organisational Market Readiness Tool and a Product Line Market Readiness Tool (see Appendix 2 for details of these tools and their interpretation – already developed by the South African Institute for Entrepreneurship as part of the Needs Analysis undertaken). These two measures can be used to check a wide range of factors that influence Market Readiness. Each organisation or product offering evaluated will achieve a score from 1 to 6 on various measures at the outset of the intervention. The same scales will be used to measure and accurately reflect the progress of organisations into the future. Ultimately, the programme will enable each crafters and crafting organisations to become self sufficient.
Objectives
- To develop and utilise an appropriate measure of the current Market Readiness status of South African Crafters and their product lines in order to appropriately provide interventions to secure the long-term viability and income generating craft and tourism businesses;
- To design and provide upgrading training interventions to enable crafters to gear up to be ready to supply more demanding and bigger markets whilst also capturing unique heritage within innovative, attractive products that appeal to these markets.
- To pilot and refine the training courses with national and international NGOs in order to ensure it meets the requirements for effective, competitive and sustainable business creation marketing local craft to tourists and businesses in South Africa and abroad;
- Crafters will be provided with entrepreneurial business knowledge, financial and general management skills, planning skills, product knowledge and markets trends in a simulation training that maximises learning and understanding by doing;
- Enhancement of skills will enable participants to move beyond survival production to the next level in terms of the outputs so that they can go from survival to an added measure of wealth and income generation;
- Participants will be able to capitalize on newly identifiable entrepreneurial opportunities and business skills to grow both their product range and businesses.
- A range of shop outlets and the GreaterGood SA website will be established through which both an overall brand and individual brands can be developed and grown.
