SANDTON – As a build up to the Small Businesses Expo and #BuyaBusiness Expo, keynote speakers were invited to discuss the business world.
Explain… Keynote speaker, Tshepo Phakathi, explains the issue of unemployment and provides economical solutions for this problem.
With the #BuyaBusiness Expo and Small Business Expo to be held later in the year, experts were invited to address the press and members of the public in Bryanston and discussed businesses, unemployment and the South African economy.
Keynote speaker, Tshepo Phakathi, an economist, banker and group chief executive officer of a company which fights poverty and unemployment, Phakathi Holdings, said, “An important question to ask is, what are the problems with unemployment? I have often wrestled with this question.”
Phakathi said the real problem with regards to joblessness relates to a labour supply. “The issue is that the supply of labour being offered is not of a good quality.”
He elaborated on this and said that the only way to improve the quality of labour is to develop skills and an education for more South Africans, specifically the youth. “There are three important factors to building a successful business and these are experience, capital and social capital,” highlighted Phakathi.
In terms of capital, he said that having assets, such as a house and a good credit record, make it easier to obtain capital. Social capital relates to building relationships and networking.
The second speaker was Brian Walsh, an authority on entrepreneurship and human behaviour and the founder of The Real Entrepreneur Institute, a business which focuses on entrepreneurship. He said, “You have a one in 20 chance of having your business work.”
There is, therefore, a significant amount of risk involved in starting a business from scratch. Walsh dramatically compared the risk of starting up a business with an individual risking their life in a life and death situation.
Walsh revealed that certain personalities are better suited to becoming entrepreneurs. “There are the optimists and the visionaries who are good at starting things, but who are not necessarily good at finishing them. These people cannot help but start innovative businesses. Then there are the systematic people who work behind the scenes. Less innovative people are good at buying already existing things and developing them. People are born with a specific energy and flow that doesn’t change.”
By Pascale Michael | Sandton Chronicle
