Shanduka Black Umbrellas’ (SBU) regular procurement workshops at its incubators around the country have proven highly beneficial for those looking to become part of a large corporate’s supply chain and for corporates who want to optimise their suppliers in terms of the broad-based scorecard.
Three of SBU’s Durban businesses had interviews with Toyota following the KZN procurement workshop, while Eskom and Standard Bank requested all the incubator’s client profiles.
The workshops are a further initiative by SBU’s established business incubation programme to give small businesses a clearer understanding of what they need to do to increase their chances of becoming involved in big corporates’ supply chains.
The workshops are open to SBU’s own clients as well as small businesses in the area.
The Durban procurement workshop took place in April at the Botanic Gardens Conference Centre and was attended by more than 200 businesses.
The keynote speakers were Alan Warren, Senior Manager – Materials and Facilities Purchasing at Toyota SA Manufacturing; Allan Ambrose, Provincial Head – Small Enterprises from The Standard Bank of South Africa; and Theresa Maasdorp – Supplier Development Manager- and Derna Edmund – Supplier Development Advisor – both from Eskom.
They discussed the challenges and opportunities in incorporating small businesses within their supply chain while also advising on procurement opportunities for SMMEs who have demonstrated reliability and integrity as a company.
The feedback from those attending was hugely positive – comments ranged from, “Durban needs more of these” to, “We finally have had an opportunity to ask questions and engage with giants in the industry”.
Durban SBU regional manager Charlene Lamb was delighted with the good attendance and said it was clear that there is a definite need for more events like this: “Of course we are also thrilled that it may lead to business opportunities for our clients as well!”
Pretoria SBU’s procurement workshop took place at its own premises in March and was attended by current SBU clients; Pretoria-based Blackpages businesses and members of SBU’s Advisory Board.
The speakers were Nic Strauss, Group Supply Chain Manager from Aurecon; Jason Boustead, Director at ITEC Pretoria and Tenjwase Gumede, an ED specialist from Transnet.
All three of the keynote speakers gave a presentation of their organisation as well as the procurement processes, procurement spend and type of procurement required from SMMEs.
Owing to the complexity of some of the organisations’ procurement policies, it was agreed that SBU would provide each of the presenting organisations with the profiles of each of the businesses currently on the SBU programme.
Says Matthew Rice, Pretoria SBU regional manager: “It was a successful workshop as it spoke directly to the challenges faced by small businesses when wanting to form trading relations with large corporates. Future procurement workshops will be held in partnership with City of Tshwane.”
A procurement workshop was also held by the Johannesburg SBU incubator with Transnet and Eskom on March 12.
