PSFU seeks to standardise business development services
Mr Kisirinya signs on a plaque during the launch of business development services training in Kampala on Monday. Photo / Stephen Otage
What you need to know:
- The programme seeks to address challenges of poor quality of business development services and the cost of attaining such services
Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU) and MasterCard Foundation have launched a programme to streamline the standards of business development services.
The programme, which will be implemented by the African Management Institute under the Enhancing Lead Firm Structure for Youth Employment project, seeks to address challenges of poor quality of business development services and the cost of attaining such services by providers of business development services.
‘’Every stakeholder has a distinct role that is essential to achieve a common objective which is enterprise development. We want to ensure continuous transformation of the economy by promotion and development of sustainable and successful enterprises that are able to lead to growth and wealth creation,’’ Mr Francis Kisirinya, the chief membership officer at PSFU, said.
Speaking at the launch of the partnership on Monday, Mr Johnson Abitekaniza, the Ministry of Trade assistant commissioner micro small and medium enterprises, said business support services are a key factor in business development, noting that training of those seeking to offer the service must target achieving a uniform direction.
“The business development services system is characterised by various constraints. We, in partnership with the Mastercard, decided to contribute to the process of streamlining business development services,’’ he said, noting that the standards will be enforced after working out a mechanism, which will be gazetted by the Uganda National Bureau of Standards.
However, for now, Mr Abitekaniza said, they will be used as benchmarks to guide business development service providers in the ecosystem.
Mr Rohin Otieno, the Africa Management Institute senior impact manager, said they had initiated a process to understand the business development needs of Ugandan enterprises and had found inefficiencies in the capacity of the service providers to deliver the support needed and also lacked the ability to cascade the training to others, which led to the development of two standards to address the challenges.
At least, he said, 200 trainees across the country will be selected, after which they will be trained at no cost with the hope that they will cascade the training to communities in far flung corners of the country.
