In September 2016, Seapei Mafoyane, chief executive officer (CEO) of Shanduka Black Umbrellas (SBU), a business incubator targeting emerging black-owned enterprises, was busy writing her annual review for inclusion in SBU’s 2016 annual report. She believed that SBU had an essential role to play in ensuring the success of black entrepreneurs[1] in South Africa, among whom the failure rate was notoriously high.

No of pages: 18

On 1 July 2013 Claire Reid, founder and director of Reel Gardening, a manufacturer of prefertilised vegetable and herb seed strips, met with Emily Jones, head of Reel Life, the community-focused arm of Reel Gardening. Reel Life aimed to address food security in South Africa by helping low-income communities plant food gardens using Reel Gardening’s products. Reid was concerned that Reel Gardening was not making the profits it needed to fund the growth she envisaged for Reel Life.

The first part of this case is set in 1985, when twenty-five year old Herman Mashaba and two colleagues decided to enter the ethnic hair-care market in a politically turbulent South Africa with an evocative name for their product and a R30 000 loan.

Raizcorp was a South African business incubator founded by Allon Raiz in 2000. The company, which was the only privately held, unfunded, profit-making incubator in South Africa, provided a variety of business support programmes aimed at guiding individual entrepreneurs to profitability. By 2012, Raizcorp had established itself as one of Africa’s leading business incubators, supporting around 300 companies throughout South Africa, with an average 86% success rate. Raizcorp had developed a rigorous eight-step selection process through which it chose its entrepreneurs.

In December 2008, Charlene Lewison, marketing director of the Johannesburg-based family business, Birdi Golf Apparel, surveyed the company’s well-stocked shelves with pride – but also with a growing sense of unease. In the past 12 years, Birdi had become an established brand on both the professional and amateur golf circuits in South Africa.

Raizcorp chief executive Allon Raiz was faced each day with many applications to join his business incubation Prosperator programme. He knew what to look for in an entrepreneur, but it was not always “cut and dried”. In September 2012, he and his panel were considering an applicant who had passed all the tests with flying colours, and they were unanimous in their belief that he had what it took to be successful. His business, however, left them in doubt. It was a struggling IT support company, which they felt had no differentiating factors in an already overtraded industry.

On 19 May 2010, Ndaba Ntsele – Ernst & Young World Best Entrepreneur (SA, 2007) and CEO of Pamodzi Investment Holdings (PIH), a diversified investment company – was preparing for the launch of Pamodzi Aviation the next day. The company had secured a licence from the Ukraine-based, government-owned Antonov Aeronautical Scientific Complex to service and sell Antonov planes in Africa.

In late 2013, Nando’s, a global chicken restaurant chain, marked the successful implementation of a project for the ethical sourcing of African bird’s eye chillies (ABE) – the signature ingredient of the brand. The initiative had set Nando’s on the road to securing its annual requirement of ABE from traceable sources, while improving the lives of participating small-scale farmers in Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

In late 2013, Nando’s, a global chicken restaurant chain, marked the successful implementation of a project for ethical sourcing of African bird’s eye chillies (ABE) – the signature ingredient of the brand. The initiative had set Nando’s on the road to securing its annual requirement of ABE from traceable sources, while improving the lives of participating small-scale farmers in Mozambique and Zimbabwe.

The night before his tender proposal had to be submitted, Barry Berman, the founder of Creative Plates, a company that marketed personalised vehicle registration numbers (PRNs) in the Western Cape and Gauteng, was about to negotiate the biggest deal of his life. To stand a chance of winning a contract to market PRNs for the Gauteng provincial administration, his company had to meet government affirmative procurement requirements. This meant that he had to negotiate a deal with a black-owned company.