The process of starting up, and developing a business is not just an adventure, but also a real challenge. In order to help entrepreneurs with this, it is essential to create a favorable business environment.
Ensuring easier access to funding, making legislation clearer and more effective and developing an entrepreneurial culture and support networks for businesses are all instrumental as far as the setting up and growth of businesses are concerned.
However, creating a favorable business environment does not mean simply improving the growth potential of businesses. It also means turning Nakuru into a place in which it is advantageous to invest, live and work. In this way, the promotion of corporate social responsibility is contributing to making business in Nakuru more attractive.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up over 90% of Nakuru businesses. Their small size makes them very sensitive to changes in the industry and environment in which they operate. It is therefore vital for their well-being to be a focus of political, local governance, infrastructure, attention.
In this series of posts we hope to discuss who's Job this is, what it entails as in challenges and opportunities therein, the practical steps to actualize this viability and way forward.
We are open to digressions that might be influenced by your feedback.
To give somewhat of a framework we are listing aspects of an attractive business environment in a developing country then compare to how Nakuru town matches up to them, given the listed and or quoted economic facts particular to Nakuru. It is against this benchmarks that we will be able to derive our contributions.
for the sake of direction we would like to begin with comparing Nakuru town's attractiveness as a business destination compared to Twelve Key towns in Kenya and within the eastern Africa region.Nairobi,Mombasa,Kisumu,Eldoret,Nyeri,Narok,Kampala,
Dare-salaam,Moshi,Bunjumbura,Kigali,Juba).These Are the business destinations we consider our greatest competition. We hope to establish a formula for ranking and a course of action of how best to beat each of them in the eyes of our niche prospects.
But first things first, It is time we narrowed down to a few business activities, when that is mentioned Agriculture and tourism pop-up instantly and they are very good platforms to stand on but is that all we can do? Now that huge geothermal potential is already a bust around us should energy be added to the list? With the integration of the east Africa trade and political aspects on high gear should we be thinking business support activities as well?
These are key questions we will need to answer as we narrow down on the positioning we are now developing as a business destination. These answers will further help us prioritize and harmonize the competing interests that will inevitably surface in the process of building an attractive business environment.
We will start small on this discussion by looking at how we compare to the broadest and most basic and critical, social political and economic aspects of a city that make it easy to start and run any kind of business.
Affordability of permits, registering a business and enforcing contracts. We hope to come up with an inclusive action plan of making Nakuru the prime business destination in the region because we believe that is the only way to match the growth to development. We would love to have your thoughts on this.
Sources:
http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/theory/theory--the-external-environment--236.php
http://www.iese.edu/research/pdfs/DI-0833-E.pdf
http://www.doingbusiness.org/data/exploreeconomies/kenya/sub/narok
Thomas Kaberi
C.E.O.
