Accelerating Business Incubators: Framework for start-ups in Botswana (Pt I)
Milton Gwakwa | Monday June 20, 2022 06:00
In this article, I will share and walk you through what I consider to be the most appropriate business model that our beloved Botswana should adopt and accelerate to be competitive both locally and globally.
Let me disclaim this article by reiterating that the views and opinions expressed in this article do not represent any institution or organisation’s position but are my personal views gathered through personal experiences, observations, and practice.
The article is meant to provide a platform for knowledge exchange of what is practical and what is not, what is feasible and what is not, but it has at its root, the desire to see start-up entrepreneurs ‘making educated noise’ globally through producing state of the art goods and services, further characterised by world-class cutting edge designs.
To start with, the growth of Botswana’s economy and its general economic focus cannot be discussed outside the space occupied by small and medium enterprises-entrepreneurs a very important and critical sector to which several entrepreneurs have found space. Failure rate of SMEs globally, and Botswana is no exception, in the initial years is high and is a cause for concern. COVID-19 pandemic has changed the operational framework with the majority of entrepreneurs in the SMEs most affected. Grounded evidence suggests that the majority of entrepreneurs in Africa (and Botswana being no exception) and beyond fail mostly during their early stages of inception mainly because of the lack of experience of the entrepreneur who is launching the business, lack of start-up capital, lack of information, deficiencies in the operating environment including policy inconsistency, and legal difficulties.
So what?
Because of these just mentioned challenges that the majority of entrepreneurs across the country face, we need to think outside the box and in this article I propose that the just appointed Minister of Entrepreneurship, together with related stakeholders and bodies takes the concept framework of Business Incubators seriously and regurgitate about it.
Building new business models and regimes cannot be taken for granted and the new ministry has to take a transformational and innovative and experimental ontological approach based on an authentic epistemological framework embedded in Botswana's entrepreneurial context without negating the global business dynamics.
Total involvement of government cannot be over-emphasised. The Government of Botswana and all other stakeholders with the Ministry of Entrepreneurship being at the forefront of transforming entrepreneurial business models in Botswana should, among other objectives, create and develop sustainable globally competitive SMEs that contribute towards accelerated growth of Botswana’s economy. Hence defending entrepreneurs’ failure at start up stage is a fundamental function that cannot be taken for granted-and the defence system comes in the form of putting strong policies that encourage the setting up of business incubators with specific, clearly articulated incubator policy frameworks embedded in the 2036 Vision. Let me speak with confidence here, that there is need for consistent between the incubator programmes and the overall economic development strategy. Why do I say so? It is because isolating the incubator programmes will have negative consequences on individual entrepreneurs and the overall economy of Botswana and the region-cutting across the global arena.
Fundamentals of Business Incubators
The current government policies in Botswana driving the economy towards Vision 2036 are critical and essentially fundamental in providing sustainable business opportunities in the country. But I am convinced at this point in time that the advent of COVID-19, sets further challenges where the said policies need further strengthening and implementation follow-up. Existing institutions such as the Local Enterprise Authority, Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency, Youth Development Fund, and many others playing a role in supporting entrepreneurial endeavours both for the citizenry and non-citizenry players is symbolic of how serious and committed the government is to promoting entrepreneurship as it is a key driver towards economic growth. What is critical now is to develop a clear-cut post-COVID-19 policy framework that supports what I will refer to as Practoneurship.
Practoneurship is according to the context of this article practical entrepreneurship. I will explain further this new concept in my future articles and also the role of universities in supporting government implementation of incubators by moving them from (theopreneurship – a terrible and toxic training model adopted by most universities in the teaching of entrepreneurship programmes across the country to adopting practoneurship model – which is the real practice of entrepreneurship) both in the private and public sector spheres.
Adopting an accelerated incubator culture to support start-ups
Crafting and adopting strong policies on Business Incubators cannot be over-emphasised if the contribution of SMEs players mostly made up of youth entrepreneurs, women entrepreneurs, and other disadvantaged members of communities, is to be embraced as much as we embrace formally established entities. Hence the creation of start-up ecosystems through putting in place government schemes (a lot of good work has been done in this area) and programmes aiming to promote the advancement of entrepreneurial start-ups, employment generation, and wealth creation both for the individual entrepreneur and the nation at large.
The business ecosystem covers networks of interaction among people, organisations and the environment. In its simplest form, for first-timers to read and hear about incubators, a business incubator is an organisation that is designed to help start-up entrepreneurs grow and succeed by providing free or low-cost workspace, mentorship, expertise, access to investors, and sometimes working capital in the form of loans. Incubation typically helps start-up entrepreneurs in the initial stages of their businesses to develop shock absorbers.
In other words, business incubators act as focal points of complex networks that bring and put together funding sources and synergies for start-ups and existing entrepreneurs, research, and enterprising to encourage start-ups to take advantage of the research being undertaken by research institutions and universities in particular. Allow and grant me a bit of scholarly freedom to challenge our universities, in terms of this aspect of entrepreneurial support and practicalisation processes. To what extent and to what degree are our universities (Ba Isago, University of Botswana, Botho, Limkokwing, BIUST and others) in particular turning their research into tangible products and services and linking them with the incubation phenomenon? How many of the universities have a specific budget set aside to accelerate businesses owned by start-ups? How many of the universities have strong industrial links and have clear cut policies on supporting economic growth of specific industries aligned to their programmes?
For private-owned universities, how many have in black and white, policies that support governments’ efforts to support SMEs? I know there is wholesome talk about entrepreneurship being taught at universities but how much of the incubation support programmes have been put in place to demonstrate the economic significance of resource usage in teaching entrepreneurial programmes? Until we tell each other parrhesia on the need for some research institutions and universities around to move away from paper research to techno-practical project-based research (applied research), we lay a burden on the shoulders of our government, who have for so many years provided support to SMEs, but leaving government alone to drive economic activities both in the private and public sectors of the economy will de-accelerate socio-economic growth. Businesses providing incubation platforms are and should be experienced in business and technologies the start-up is attempting to embrace.
*Gwakwa is currently a Business Management and Entrepreneurship lecturer in the Faculty of Commerce, Ba Isago University. He writes in his personal capacity. The second and final part of the article will run in next week's edition