Sasol Report to Society 2020 - Book - Page 51
Small business development and funding
Accelerating
small business development support of transformed SMMEs is one of our key
priorities in countries where we operate. This is done to contribute to economic
inclusion, while also working towards complying with the localisation requirements.
Through our ESD activities and scaling up the development programmes offered to small
businesses we are advancing objective. The focus has changed from driving spend for
compliance to offering effective programmes that will lead to SMMEs participating
in economic activity in their respective regions. The SMME journey in the ESD programme is
underpinned by a suite of interventions that seek to enable a holistic development
approach.
One of the strategic levers in accelerating the development of SMMEs is to provide them
with market access opportunities. Collaborative platforms where SMMEs could
meet, share ideas and learn more about growing their businesses were created. An example
of this was the Sasol ESD Ecosystems event held in Sasolburg, where Sasol, in partnership
with Innovation Hub and SEDA, hosted SMMEs to trade with each other. SMMEs supported
by these institutions were invited and encouraged to pitch their businesses to other SMMEs
with the intent of stimulating local trade. In addition, Sasol hosted a three-day Fourth
Industrial Revolution (4IR) masterclass where engineering and IT Specific industry
developments were shared with our SMMEs. On the last day SMMEs were afforded an
opportunity to pitch their businesses to Sasol service providers for partnership
opportunities.
Sasol in society: 2020 report
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