NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 17th – 18th 2024 – Kenya’s Small and Medium Enterprise Sector is projected to recover slowly amidst an increased tax regime.
Speaking during The Big Baraza Annual Conference, SNDBX International Chief Executive Officer Joram Mwinamo says most SMEs have found themselves struggling to stay above water, as the cost of sustaining their operations continuously increases.
Mwinamo says most SMEs are worried that their business will not survive the current economic uncertainty or expect they will have to make a significant business pivot in order to survive.
“Kenyans who experienced revenue growth have to be trained, and are more likely to report increased revenue,” said Mwinamo.
According to the Kenya Bureau of Standards 2016 Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME’s) survey report, there are approximately 7.4 million MSMEs in Kenya employing 15 million employees. According to Research Plus Africa, majority of these MSMEs (79%) are informal and nearly 23% of women youth owned businesses and 19% of men businesses have closed. Analysis shows that closure is closely associated with lack of training and access to finance.
The two-day conference brought together over 500 entrepreneurs and business owners nationwide. Mwinamo, emphasised the importance of rethinking traditional approaches to business and “Building up our local quality to compete with international brands and think about exporting talent, goods and skilled services beyond our Kenyan borders.”
Giving the keynote speech, Wandia Gichuru, Founder and CEO of Vivo whose fashion brand now has a robust retail footprint consisting of 30 stores has moved to new markets from Kenya, collaborating with various trade agreements that enabled cross border businesses into Uganda, Rwanda and Atlanta-U.S.A. She says, “it is not enough to just land in new markets, we need to have a real strategy for that market and put together a team to implement that plan for that market.”
Participating in the Panel on Unlocking Business Success with Technology and knowledge, CEO of Text Book Centre Sachin Varma says that Text Book Centre has been in the Kenyan market for 60 years, “When the economy is tough, we have learned to be frugal, when running a business, it is important to focus on your core business and to use technology to understand the market intelligence so that decisions are based on facts. Data will guide an organisation, so as not to expand too quickly. Data also enables resources to be redeployed to where they are most needed.
The event was sponsored by AAR, Safaricom Business, Zoho, Chpter, Kepsa, Kingdom Bank, PTG amongst others.
