Business Support Services

• The Limpopo Business Zone is a one-stop shop

Business-support services are specialist business services that do not form part of the core business of the contracting company. These services routinely include security provision, laundry, pest control, catering, accounting, legal services, recruitment, customer care and stationery supply.

Quite often the nature of this business-to-business interaction is between a larger company (a mining company, for example) and a smaller concern contracted to service office equipment, for example. This means that the business-support services sector has enormous potential to promote small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs). SMMEs are seen as a key vehicle in tackling unemployment.

Various Limpopo provincial government departments and agencies have been very active in this regard. Three parastatals in particular have made it their mission to boost skills, provide financial and training support, and create employment in the businesssupport services sector: Limpopo Business Support Agency (Libsa); Limpopo Development Enterprise (Limdev) and the national agency dedicated to promoting SMMEs, the Small Enterprise Development Agency, Seda.

To coordinate the initiatives of these three agencies, a special Limpopo Business Zone, with its own website, has been created. This united effort means that aspiring entrepreneurs don’t have to worry about which agency to approach for different kinds of support; there is a one-stop shop. A database of entrepreneurs has been created and is being updated and flea markets have been initiated in all of the province’s regions.

Among the goals of the Limpopo Business Zone is the integration of small-business development services, the pooling of resources for such activities, the reduction in the cost of doing business in the province and an increase in the use of technology among such businesses.

Libsa runs an annual Youth Biz Competition to stimulate an interest in entrepreneurship in young people. Technoteck Communications and Sparknet Communications are two examples of small businesses aiming to make communications easier for the public. They offer photocopying, fax, Internet and email services. The former company, based in Giyani, also designs business cards. The winner of the 2007 award, Mabunga Toilets, has gone from strength to strength and is now employing eight people.

The busy town of Polokwane obviously attracts the bulk of business-support services. The city is home to approximately 600 industrial concerns and 2 500 business, service and professional operations in the city. Large companies such as South African Breweries and Silicon Smelters, with more than 350 employees, have diverse needs. The schools, colleges, universities and tourism accommodation facilities of the city also present opportunities for the business-support services sector.

ONLINE RESOURCES
Limpopo Business Support Agency:
www.libsa.co.za
Limpopo Business Zone:
www.limpopobizzone.gov.za
Limpopo Economic Development Enterprise:
www.limdev.co.za
National Development Agency:
www.nda.org.za
Small Enterprise Development Agency:
www.seda.co.za

















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