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25 April 2019 | Story Igno van Niekerk | Photo Igno van Niekerk
Allon Raiz
Entrepreneurship is the future: Allon Raiz provides tools for tomorrow at recent UFS Business School guest lecture.
Allon Raiz treated staff and students to an entertaining, insightful and thought-provoking session on Lose the business plan: what they don’t teach you about being an entrepreneur on Thursday 10 April 2019 at the Bloemfontein Campus. The University of the Free State (UFS) Business School hosted Raiz for a guest lecture on going beyond the business plan.

Raiz, the founder and CEO of Raizcorp is the host of The Big Small Business Show on Business Day TV. He is also the author of two best-selling entrepreneurial books, and he literally gets down to earth about talking business issues when he takes off his shoes as he takes the stage to deliver a talk.

What they don’t teach you

Raiz started the session by sharing the fact that 96% of small businesses fail within 10 years. From his research and experience, he shared the three main attributes always found when studying successful entrepreneurs: “They see opportunities, take risks and add value.”

He was however clear on the fact that there is no such thing as a typical entrepreneur. “It is not about a set of characteristics, it is about a set of probabilities.”

Effective entrepreneurship education

After sharing his personal journey to entrepreneurial success, Raiz explained that entrepreneurs had different expectations in terms of how much they wanted to earn, and how big they wanted to grow their businesses. Although entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes, there are some generic tools which all entrepreneurs can use. These include finding role models, being resilient, and having an internal locus of control. 

The essence of Raiz’s message was that no matter what you want to do, don’t wait and make plans – take action. In short, lose the business plan – start working on the business.

News Archive

The challenges of local governance highlighted at the JN Boshoff Memorial lecture
2014-08-26

 

Mr Kopung Ralikontsane
Photo: Jerry Mokoroane

The annual JN Boshoff memorial lecture was hosted by the Faculty of Economics and Management Sciences in conjunction with the Department of Public Management on 21 August 2014. Mr Kopung Ralikontsane, Director-general of the Free State Provincial Government, presented the keynote address, ‘Challenges Facing Local Government in Service Delivery’.

In his opening remarks, Mr Ralikontsane gave the background of the South African municipal structures, the legal framework within which they operate and the challenges they are currently facing. He added that “local government is a sphere at the coalface of service delivery and if this sphere fails, South Africa would have failed to be a developmental state.”

He said the Free State provincial government has made great strides in developing local communities, with millions of rands invested in various development projects such as water and sanitation, electrification, roads and storm water structures, community facilities and solid waste disposal.

Local government is still faced with other challenges, though. He pointed out that public employees are subject to greater scrutiny and increased demands from citizens. As a result, they have to provide better services, but within stricter limits on resources. Conflict arises due to changing relationships between public servants and citizens, downsizing, restructuring and contracting out of government services and activities.

Despite the various structures implemented by local government, municipalities are serving an ever-growing population in an economic decline. Regulations have been put into place to devise credible Integrated Development Plans (IDPs) to improve municipal infrastructure, build competent management teams and strong operations and increase technical capacity for effective delivery of services.

Mr Ralikontsane invited students to join local government in crafting innovative solutions. “We know the problem, but we need to encourage you to join forces with your local government and tackle them.”

Mr Kopung Ralikontsane has served in local government for two decades and also serves as Head of Administration of the Free State Government and as Cabinet Secretary.


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