Solutions for Unenterpreneurial Societies....Youths' Hope

Empretec for Entrepreneurship Growth

For decades, development structures of developing economies largely ignored the role of entrepreneurship in economic development and wealth creation. Zambia’s economic development structure for instance steepened towards attracting foreign investment mainly in mining and manufacturing sectors and support industries. But economic dynamics show that the ticket to faster and broader income growth is through entrepreneurial innovation. New economic systems put a premium on “adaptive efficiency,” which refers to the ability of institutions to innovate, continuously learn, and productively change. As markets fragment, technology accelerates and competition comes from unexpected places, learning, creativity, and adaptation have become the principal sources of competitive advantage in many industries. Enabling constant innovation needs to become the goal of all organisations committed to prospering. These efforts need to be proactive and designed for the long term. Government and business leaders need to challenge all economic sectors and institutions to become cultures of innovation. The consequences for any sector that does not respond to this challenge are low productivity, stagnant living standards, and reduced opportunity for its citizens, Empretec Zambia has noted.
Background of EmpretecEntrepreneur and Technology (Empretec) is a new programme in the Zambia. The programme is an integrated capacity-building programme of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and is coordinated by the Zambia Development Agency. The programme promotes the creation of sustainable support structures that help promising entrepreneurs build innovative and internationally competitive small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). It encourages the formation of mutually beneficial business linkages among SMEs and Trans-national Corporations (TNCs).

As a result, it contributes to the creation of a dynamic private sector and an open entrepreneurial culture. It is therefore a vital complement to effective macroeconomic policies and enabling legal and regulatory framework. The term Empretec is a Spanish acronym for emprendedores (entrepreneurs) and tecnologìa (technology). It was first introduced in Argentina in 1988, with the core objective of holding entrepreneurship training workshops. These entrepreneurship training workshops encourage individual entrepreneurs to focus on their role as entrepreneurs and challenge them to critically examine their personal strengths and weaknesses and learn how to sustain their businesses. Since inception, the Empretec programme has been initiated in twenty-seven countries, assisting more than 80 000 entrepreneurs through local market-driven business support centres. Programme MethodologyThe Empretec programme strives to identify and reinforce entrepreneurial competencies that are associated with successful traits, through self-assessment and individual transformation and business stimulation activities during entrepreneurship training workshops. These ‘motivation achievement’ workshops encourage individuals to focus on their role as entrepreneurs and challenge them to critically examine their personal strengthens and weaknesses. This is meant to provide an opportunity for participants to become more familiar with personality competencies of successful entrepreneurs, strengthen and enhance those personalities in themselves, and eventually be able to apply the personalities in their own businesses.

The training method is highly interactive. It involves structured exercises, group dynamics, diagnostic tools, business events and other activities, which are designed to challenge the participants to focus on such issues as their ability and willingness to seek and attain continuous improvements in quality, efficiency, growth, and profitability. This is achieved through learning by doing. The training enables participants to become aware of the need for continuous improvement as a competitive strategy in every aspect of their business.Successful graduates of the programme obtain a clear vision of what they want to do with their businesses in the short and long term. In the words of many participants, Empretec is a "culture of entrepreneurship" common to entrepreneurs who are open minded, forward thinking, look for win-win situations, want to improve and "speak the same language". Therefore, they trust each other and are more likely to do business among themselves.

Generally, Empretec is a programme that focuses on improving the core entrepreneurial behaviours of business owners that influence their conduct, and above all, the results of their business.
Target BeneficiariesEmpretec does not define its target group by assets, turnover, or number of employees. The beneficiaries are identified on the basis of both their personal entrepreneurial competencies and their innovative approach to business. The direct beneficiaries of the Empretec programme include existing SMEs that have a track record of good business performance, potential entrepreneurs with promising business ideas, and start-up companies with good bankable project proposals. It is expected that the individual development of the entrepreneurs that takes place during an entrepreneur training workshop will lead to SME growth, linkages with larger enterprises including transnational corporations (TNCs), job creation, increased investment, and regional economic development. To effect the programme activities in Zambia, UNCTAD recently trained eleven local empretecos (trainer of trainers) to spearhead the activities of the programme in the country. The eleven were drawn from the Zambia Development Agency, International Labour Organisation, Zambia Chamber of Small and Medium Business Associations, Young Women Christian Association, Future Search, and the Technical Educational, Vocational and Entrepreneurship Training Authority. The training was meant to help the Empretec Zambia Programme to get organised and established before it could start running on its own. Zambia Development Agency will coordinate all the programme activities in the country.