Background

The Cape Winelands District municipality (CWDM) is committed to supporting both the established and emerging entrepreneurs in the region. In order to ensure equitable and sustainable economic growth, there is a need for the district municipality to create an enabling environment for emerging businesses to operate and function optimally. Creating such an environment would not only stimulate the local economy, but also enable emerging entrepreneurs to compete in both regional and global markets.   The CWDM has completed a feasibility study on the viability of establishing a Business Incubator within the District. The business incubator is geared towards supporting emerging SMMEs to help them grow during the start up period.  The ultimate aim of the business incubator will be to mobilise resources and to build capacity within emerging SMMEs based on the available experience and best practices from across the world. Once this capacity is created, it is hoped that further investment and support from domestic and international organizations will follow.

Business incubation defined

Business incubation is an attempt to improve the efficiency with which the economic system generates new sustainable enterprises. It draws on the idea that a supportive yet performance managed environment will allow the entrepreneurs to focus on his or her business concept. Business incubation can also be defined as a comprehensive business-assistance process designed to help SMMEs to improve their chances to grow into sustainable businesses. Business incubation involves host facility and provides an appropriate range of business support resources and services.

The value of business incubation

A key benefit of the incubation is that it allows business start-ups to grow within a controlled and managed environment. It allows both success and failure to be analysed and better understood. It allows hidden obstacles to entrepreneurial success to be uncovered. 
Business incubation is about achieving the following outcomes:

• Creating small start-up businesses that will last, that will grow to create jobs and that will contribute to tax revenue.
• Helping entrepreneurs to survive the first few crucial years.
• Guiding the entrepreneurs towards a focused business model that is sustainable.
• Creating a forum where physical support can be given, where entrepreneurs can draw moral support from each other and where they can collaborate within the boundaries of professional ethics.
• The focus of the business incubator is economic development. The emphasis is decidedly towards a broader base of participation in the creation of viable small businesses, which will create employment opportunities and contribute to the economy. 

Cape Winelands District Municipality calls on partners

CWDM wishes to establish and sustain partnerships within the business community. The CWDM is seeking partnerships with private companies, tertiary education institutions, financial institutions and public entities that could assist the CWDM with specific programmes within the incubator. The CWDM also wants to establish relationships with the natural stakeholders of the incubator, with the specific aim of developing areas of collaboration and the specific protocols that guide such collaboration. CWDM is looking for partners that would share the same vision of reducing unemployment and growing the economy of the region.

Contact details:
Ms Gayle Daniels Manager: Local Economic Development
Tel: +27 21 888 5151
E-mail: gayle@capewinelands.gov.za