SEEing is believing

The Graduate School of Business has welcomed another 10 small businesses into the fold of its Supporting Emerging Enterprises (SEE) programme.

SEE - an elective on its MBA programme - is the longest-running entrepreneurship programme at the GSB. Started in 1998, it is designed to give MBA students invaluable hands-on experience in small-scale business consulting, giving advice on everything from funding and bookkeeping to growth and marketing.

But SEE also doubles as an outreach project, delivering quality advice to local small businesses. To qualify for admission to SEE, businesses must be black-owned and have a turnover of less than R1-million per year.

Since 1998, more than 200 businesses have been through SEE.

That includes alumni like Peter de Bruyn, a former vagrant who now runs Peter's Car Wash, a thriving car-wash business. Then there's also Joe Diliza, owner of Thando Papers, which produces a range of recycled-paper products.

In 2002, Diliza won the Cape Times/KPMG Business Personality of the Year Editor's Choice Award. And in 2003, he was chosen as one of just nine African entrepreneurs to exhibit his product at the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

Both De Bruyn and Diliza have also received of the Cape Argus Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Another success story is that of Dan Kiva, who owns an electrical spaza and has now started a computer company called PicaPC. Kiva was the 2003 recipient of the Cape Times/KPMG Business Personality of the Year Editor's Choice Award.

The GSB also celebrated, in early September, the completion of the 2005 run of its SEE programme at an event that is affectionately known as the "SEE Graduation". Here the MBA students handed over their evaluation reports to the small-business owners.

"The reports are written to contribute to the success of these businesses and give them practical guidelines to ensure growth in the future," says Donovan.

To send the entrepreneurs off on the right note, they were treated to a talk by guest speaker Iqbal Survé, CEO of Sekunjalo Investments and a graduate from the GSB's Executive MBA programme.