Enterprise Monthly

 
KIM CENTRE FOR ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT (KIM-CED)
  [Experts in SME Training, Consultancy, Research and OPI-SME]
Issue: 001              A Monthly Newsletter                                 March 2011 

Tool for Entrepreneurs &

Organizations Funding SMEs
TOP STORIES Entrepreneurs, powered by
1. A new tool for Entrepreneurs strong business ideas, start up
and Organizations Funding new business ventures.
However, most of them
SMEs
encounter stiff challenges once
2. Risk Taking they start their businesses due
to deficiencies in certain skills,
3. TriStart Tool
operating environment or
4. Upcoming Activities technical knowhow. An
understanding of these issues
would enable an entrepreneur of
 
a fund manager make
appropriate decisions. The
Risk taking and learning by setting TriStart tool offers this
example intervention by evaluating the
n organization set to soar should embrace possibility of entrepreneurial

 
 
A risk taking and learning. Too many
managers often ask their employees to
try new things and then are very hard on
them when they fail.
Success.

TriStart is a unique, online self-

Vision, mission and values
Management has the role of coming up
with the organization’s vision and thus
should ensure that the employees are so
caught up in the vision that they actually
breathe it. When any employee is
randomly woken up in the middle of the
night and asked “Where are we going?”
they should be so clear about the vision
even in the half awake stupor. Such can
only happen when the management
mentors the staff at every level to
practically transform their work to fulfill
the vision.
For example, as a way of offering
excellent customer service standards in
a supermarket, employees should be
trained to clearly direct customers to
the respective product shelf if they
enquire about the location of certain
products within the retail store. The
management should encourage
ownership by asking employees to give
practical examples of how they would
fulfill the vision through their roles.
 
assessment business readiness
tool, which evaluates
If you want your people to experiment and entrepreneurs on their capability
expand their minds, set the example yourself. to run a certain business venture
You can create a culture that welcomes risk successfully. It provides an
taking by freely admitting your mistakes and analysis of an individual’s
talking about what you have learned from personalized business readiness
them. report based on 19 key
These experiences have no great feeling, but components which have been
by openly sharing shows that it’s ok to take a grouped into three categories,
and then statistically correlated
swing and miss as “LONG” as you learn from
into entrepreneurial success
them. As for learning, live it yourself. Just
criteria consisting of: Market
because you are boss doesn’t mean you are
and Technology, Experience and
the source of all knowledge. Whenever you
learn about a best practice in your sector Skills, and Entrepreneurial Spirit.
create a scene and let the staff know. The TriStart tool will be vital in
You can and should learn from one another assisting entrepreneurs
too. In the best case scenario, all your people understand their strengths and
will be smarter than you. In most cases the the key areas they need to
risk reward equation will be consistent if you improve on or acquire skills. The
tool is also of great importance
set the example.
to lending institutions since the
report provided can be used to
What is the Organizational Performance gauge the ability of the
Index (OPI)?
entrepreneur and the potential
success of the organization.
 I
 
UPCOMING ACTIVITIES
TRAINING FOR OPI-SME CHAMPIONS
What: OPI Champions Training
When: 4th – 6th April 2011
Where: Gracia Gardens (Dennis
Pritt Rd)
 
TRAINING OF PROFESSIONAL SME
BUSINESS CONSULTANTS
What: Training of Professional
Business Consultants
When: 11th – 15th April 2011
Where: Sarova Panafric Hotel
TRISTART LAUNCH
When: To be Announced soon
 
Center for Enterprise Development, Kenya Institute of Management, Maple Court, 1st Floor, Opposite
Embassy of Zimbabwe, Westlands Close, off Westlands Road, P.O. Box 43706-00100, Nairobi, KENYA
Tel: +254 20 3749928/9 E-mail: tmahea@kim.ac.ke Website: www.kim.ac.ke
KIM Centre for Enterprise Development – Empowering Entrepreneurs
Training
f staff evaluations carried out shows that
your staff needs to develop on certain
relevant skills or should upgrade on relevant
policies coming up in the particular sector, the
management should be very keen to develop
them. At the same time, if you have the right
people they will want to grow. They will be
bursting with the desire to learn and do more.
These facts are strongly emphasized in the
OPI Champions training where a team of staff  
from participating organizations are trained on
quality and performance improvement in Good Leadership Qualities:
organizations. Companies can also conduct in Fresh Ideas, Insight and
house training led by the manager who not Innovation
only serves as the teacher but the role model.
A company with fewer resources (Human) can
To develop good leadership
facilitate training outside at any number of
qualities it's therefore critical to
good programs especially the ones offered by
build continuous learning into
Kenya Institute of Management.
our own routine and into the
Companies cannot promise their staff a fabric of our organizations. To
lifetime of employment. Global competition is paraphrase Peter Drucker: its
too fierce for such guarantees. But they can difficult to distinguish the
promise to give their people a very good important from the time
wasting and the potentially
chance of employability-skills that will make
effective from the frustrating.
them more attractive.
On your own there is never
Like rewards and recognition, training does enough time to do this, and if
that. It motivates people by showing them a there was, finding the valuable
way to grow, that the company cares, and ideas would probably still take
that they have a future. too long anyway! This is where
The management should utilize every it helps to recognize leading
opportunity to upgrade its staff. The usual bi- thinkers, and the value they
annual employee evaluation should not be the can bring.
only time that management points out areas
the employees need to improve but should Learning from leading thinkers
can help bring fresh ideas,
utilize daily activities to mentor, train and
grow its staff. insight and innovation to our
  practice. Our start point
doesn’t have to be ground
Free e­book:  
zero. Often it's far better to
The John Adair Handbook of Management build on the work of leading
and Leadership thinkers, either external or
internal to our organizations.
[Click on the title of the e-book above to download] However this should not be
  done in an uncritical manner.
What worked in one context
may not necessarily work in
another.