Announcing the Twiteze Imbere Campaign Award Celebration
Celebrating the Twiteze Imbere Campaign Award Winning Small Businesses
To recognise and celebrate the winners of the Twiteze Imbere campaign SME Response Clinic Business Awards, and reflect on the campaign, Access to Finance Rwanda (AFR) and ConsumerCentriX hosted a half-day celebration alongside key campaign partners on May 19th.
The Twiteze Imbere campaign was created to recognize the role small businesses are playing in Rwanda’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the campaign, the general public nominated their favorite small businesses, giving their nominees the chance to win an SME Response Clinic Business Award. The competition featured three categories: women-owned businesses, start-up or innovative businesses, and established businesses. Three winners and five runners-up stood out from almost 2,000 nominations.
During the celebration, Jean Bosco Iyacu, Country Director of AFR, congratulated the winners and thanked them for their role in Rwanda’s economic recovery. Mr. Iyacu also highlighted AFR’s ongoing efforts to support small businesses in Rwanda and appreciated the diversity within the businesses that were nominated.
Anna Gincherman, Managing Partner at ConsumerCentriX, encouraged the entrepreneurs to utilise the SME Response Clinic’s resources to grow their businesses.
“The SME Response Clinic will continue to support entrepreneurs by providing access to financial opportunities and information on business development services,” she said.
The three winners discussed how they plan to use the one million Rwandan francs prize to grow their businesses. They responded to some questions from partners and networked with business development experts including RICEM’s Dr. Olivier Mukulira and Malik Shaffy, Country Manager of the African Management Institute in Rwanda (AMI).
Jean Bosco Manirareba, winner in the established businesses category, said that the prize money will be invested to expand market reach beyond Kirehe District where Umucyo operates.
Hamdani Habumuremyi, winner of the start-up/innovative business category said: “The prize money will allow me to acquire new machinery and equipment to support my business activities.”
Judith Kaine, winner in the women-led businesses category said: “I plan to use the award to increase visibility and awareness of my business across Rwanda.”
In addition to the prize money, the three winners will each receive expert business advisory services provided by Rwanda Institute for Cooperatives, Entrepreneurship and Microfinance (RICEM), and AMI. These services will equip them with the skills and knowledge to further improve the success of their businesses.
Meet the winners here
PUBLICATION | Non-Financial Services: The Key to Unlocking the Growth Potential of Women-led Small and Medium Enterprises for Banks
Non-Financial Services: The Key to Unlocking the Growth Potential of Women-led Small and Medium Enterprises for Banks
Women-led small and medium enterprises (WSMEs) represent a great opportunity to banks: women own 34 percent of private businesses globally, including almost six million formal SMEs in the developing world. Yet WSMEs’ enormous potential remains largely untapped due to systemic barriers facing women-led enterprises globally. Providing nonfinancial services (NFS) alongside finance is an effective means for financial institutions to tap into the enormous potential of women-led enterprises.
In collaboration with IFC and FMO, ConsumerCentriX is proud to announce the release of the publication “Non-Financial Services: The Key to Unlocking the Growth Potential of Women-led Small and Medium Enterprises for Banks.”
Based on newly minted research, this publication examines the benefits to banks of integrating NFS that can help mitigate these barriers into a women-focused SME banking proposition. As part of the study, ConsumerCentriX surveyed 34 banks worldwide on their approach to and measurement of nonfinancial services, with a focus on their offerings to businesses owned by women.
KCB Bank: Focusing on Women SMEs and non-financial services is a win-win for all
Non-financial services were instrumental in growing Patricia Mwangi’s business in Kenya
NFS from her bank helped Wanjiru Mbugua turn a side hustle into a thriving business
Intensive analysis of five SME banking models, in addition to the survey results, previously published case studies, and other resources, found that well-integrated NFS offers for WSMEs yield positive return on investment (ROI) within one to two years. This is demonstrated through four key metrics: increased interest income; share of wallet, which includes cross-sell, deposit volume and fee income, including fees charged for NFS participation; loyalty; and reduced risk.
The publication also identifies four best practices in design and execution of WSME-focused NFS, which banks looking to capitalize on this opportunity can follow:
- Tailor the proposition to the needs and profiles of different customer segments
- Provide an integrated, one-stop experience for financial and non-financial services
- Build institutional alignment to drive results
- Integrate measurement into program design and delivery
Alongside Cathleen Tobin, ConsumerCentrix’s Anna Gincherman and Benedikt Wahler served as primary authors to the report. Their efforts were supported by the broader ConsumerCentriX team, including Istvan Szepesy and Dora Solymos for data analytics and Ana Singh for video production and report design. “We hope that key insights from the report will encourage banks to expand their value propositions for women enterprises and invest in strengthening NFS ecosystems for WSMEs,” said Gincherman.
Rwandan Online Business Bootcamp Launched
Rwandan Online Business Bootcamp Launched
By Alejandra Ríos and Jessica Massie
A version of this article was originally posted on the SME Response Clinic
To support entrepreneurs in these challenging and unprecedented times, Access to Finance Rwanda (AFR) has partnered with the Rwanda Private Sector Federation and ConsumerCentriX on the SME Response Clinic. This digital platform provides entrepreneurs in Rwanda with information on financial management and industry insights to improve their response to this crisis.
However, information alone is not enough. As a result of this conviction, the SME Response Clinic is promoting a series of webinars and virtual programs through a partnership with the African Management Institute (AMI), to help entrepreneurs to adjust to financial uncertainty by deepening their skills and business acumen.
On Tuesday, May 12th, small businesses in Rwanda across sectors and with different business sizes joined the first FREE “Business Survival Bootcamp” facilitated by the African Management Institute (AMI).
Jean Bosco Iyacu of Access to Finance Rwanda (AFR), opened the webinar with a message of solidarity for the SME Response Clinic and SMEs in Rwanda.
The webinar takes businesses through important tools for planning during the COVID-19 pandemic.
These include:
- Scenario planning for your business – how do you deal with issues regarding customers, suppliers, infrastructure, staff and cash flow? How will these be affected if I close or have slow business for two weeks? What if it is two months?
- Organizational risk assessments – looking at the different dimensions of business, the risks they face, and how to mitigate them. What do you do if you can’t get the goods you need for your store, or supply your customers?
- Impact on cash flow – what to do if and when your cash flow is affected by an unexpected closure or low period.
All participants are given access to tools, such as cash flow planning spreadsheets, from AMI to use to help in their own businesses. These resources are free and designed specifically to navigate the issues in the COVID-19 pandemic, and include additional courses.
These tools and conversations are important given that the pandemic is likely to continue to affect SMEs in Rwanda – and around the world – for an unknown period of time. According to Diederik Wokke of AMI, many small businesses originally thought they would be affected for just the first two weeks of the lockdown. Now that the situation is stabilizing but slowly, businesses still need to build these skills and plan for a more uncertain future.
Conversation during the training highlighted some of the questions that SMEs have right now. For example, supplier negotiation is becoming more difficult now that businesses are able to open little by little. A shop renting a space may have had more flexibility in terms of payment during the lockdown, but this is changing as the country opens.
Finally, there are still many questions around payments and transferring to contactless mechanisms as much as possible. Many businesses are switching to digital payments and are still in the learning phase.
But with planning, management, and resources like those available from the SME Response Clinic, small businesses will be more likely to survive this pandemic.
Find out more about the upcoming sessions at “Expanding My Skills” on the SME Response Clinic website and on Facebook.
About the Authors
Alejandra Rios is an expert in inclusive finance with a focus on small-and-medium (SME) enterprises, advising leading commercial banks and microfinance institutions in emerging markets for the past twenty years. Her portfolio in MSME finance consultancy covers change management, housing finance, rural finance, institution-building, strategic planning, and credit management. She is a Partner at ConsumerCentriX.
Jessica Massie is a consultant in financial capability and microfinance based in Kigali, Rwanda. She has lived and worked in a variety of African countries for almost 20 years, and specializes in curriculum development, training, research and writing, with a focus on skill-building and behavior change. She is working with the ConsumerCentriX team on the SME Response Clinic in Rwanda.
