Cracking the code of enterprise and supplier development

Continuing Education at the University of Pretoria (CE at UP) is taking the lead in providing public companies and stakeholders in government with an all-inclusive supplier development solution in an effort to grow and support underrepresented, black-owned suppliers on a large scale. While these big role-players have the opportunity to invest in the skills development of small enterprises, they also now receive greater incentives for "buy-back" of goods and services once these suppliers have been trained and upskilled to meet big business requirements.

With the revised Codes of Good Practice that came into effect on 1 May 2015 and the addition of a new category on enterprise and supplier development in the governance of broad-based black economic empowerment (B-BBEE), a greater emphasis is placed on the training and upskilling of individuals and black-owned businesses in an effort to enter the marketplace through the contributions of big organisations in both the private and public sectors.

This unique supplier development solution focuses on the challenges that many small enterprises face when dealing with big organisations, addressing each challenge through targeted training programmes that underline areas of development in:

• Financial and cost management
  
• Ethics and corporate governance
  
• Customer experience and research
  
• Business principles and administration
  
• Value chain and resource management

The solution further caters for industry-specific requirements with specialised training programmes for dealing with role-players in, among others, the Health, Agriculture, Supply Chain, Service Delivery and Information Technology (IT) sectors. Organisations are also presented with an opportunity to include unemployed black individuals in their corporate training programmes for possible employment on completion of their training period.

By developing qualifying small businesses and micro-enterprises as core suppliers to big organisations, they can become the drivers of change in implementing a supplier development solution that not only provides training and upskilling for individuals, but ultimately increase access to corporate supply-chain opportunities.

Continuing Education at University of Pretoria (CE at UP) has a legacy of providing national and international delegates with excellent training solutions presented by leading academics of the University of Pretoria. With the best possible training solutions to companies that want to upskill employees on their career paths and invest in their professional development, CE at UP offers more than 500 career-focused short courses across 20 industry fields. CE at UP also recognises the need for flexible and alternative training options to upskill employees and grow their knowledge base whether through in-house training or tailor-made content with a variety of scheduled, client-specific, online and CPD courses.