Enablis Network of Entrepreneurs Soars, Creates More Jobs

Nairobi: April 13^th , 2011 – Enablis East Africa network of entrepreneurs created a total of 3,700 jobs in 2010, up from 1,659 in 2009 an annual independent member survey has revealed.

 The Independent Annual Survey, conducted in February 2011, for the third consecutive year by research company Research in Action across Enablis’ 500-strong membership indicated that each entrepreneur in the network created an average of 7.4 jobs up 6.5 jobs the previous year, across all sectors of the economy.

 Commenting at the launch of the survey, Mr. Ali Mufuruki, Chairman of Enablis East Africa said: “We are delighted at the positive results that we are seeing through this annual survey. Our membership has grown to the 500 member milestone from 222 entrepreneurs in 2009. This is a huge achievement for a young organization such as ours, but more importantly, is that our members are creating more jobs year on year.”

“These results demonstrated that great things are possible when entrepreneurs receive the necessary support such as skills, knowledge and networking opportunities such as the once provided by Enablis. We believe that entrepreneurs can have a tremendous impact on socio-economic development of the East Africa region.”

The Enablis’ package of services for entrepreneurs is based largely on the Chase Bank Enablis Annual Business Launchpad Competition, which draws members to Enablis as a platform for networking, capacity building and financing. 

Enablis Africa Chief Operating Officer, Moses Mwaura, said, “We are very happy to see the membership across our country chapters growing so quickly in Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. Additionally, the results of annual survey help to confirm that our programmes add value to entrepreneurs in our network. We continue to strive to best serve the needs of our members and provide them with necessary access to skills development and networking.” 

Mrs. Christine Dusabe is Enablis East Africa’s 500^th member. Mrs. Dusabe is the owner of Rwanda Processing Lumen, a cassava food processing business in Kigali, Rwanda. Rwanda Processing Lumen specializes in purchasing cassava produce from farmer’s cooperatives in the region and processing it into starch and high quality cassava flour, the staple food in the region. In addition, the company also grows its own cassava for processing. Mrs. Dusabe came to Enablis which helped her to build critical business skills, knowledge and gave her networking opportunities with other entrepreneurs.

Demographics

The 2010 Survey included a sample of 122 Enablis East Africa members in Kenya and Tanzania. In this sample, 62% of respondents were male and 38% female, 62% were over 35 years of age and 38% were under 35. Participants come from a range of sectors, the largest including Services (49%), ICT (18%), Agriculture (16%) and Manufacturing (15%).

Job Creation

The 122 entrepreneurs included in the Survey sample have a total of 1105 employees, for an average of 9 employees per member. They created 246 full-time jobs and 659 part-time jobs in 2010, which equates to an average of 7.4 new jobs per member in 2010. Projected across the 500 members, this equates to an estimated total of 3,700 new jobs over a year.  Since the first survey results conducted in East Africa, Enablis member entrepreneurs have created an estimated 9,700-time and part-time jobs.

Business performance

Eighty- seven percent (87%) of survey respondents indicated that they had steady or increased turnover over the past year.  In terms of profits, 83% of respondents experienced steady or increased profits in 2010. Seventy-four percent (74%) of entrepreneurs surveyed have improved, extended or introduced new products or services in the past year and 28% added new businesses.  

Improvement in business skills and knowledge

Ninety-five percent  (95%) of respondents indicated that Enablis has helped them grow their businesses, and an impressive 98% report that they have improved their business skills and knowledge since joining Enablis with networking skills, business strategy and communications toping the list of skills developed.

Ebenise Bester, CEO Enablis Africa, explains, “We are grateful to have the opportunity of working with forward-thinking partners prepared to invest in entrepreneurs. The Canadian International Development Agency, Accenture, Chase Bank, Safaricom, NMB Bank and Microsoft have made these benefits possible to the members in our network.”