Region: Africa, South Africa
Institution: University of Cape Town
Department: Graduate Business School

Contact: Professor Walter Baetz
Website: www.gsb.uct.ac.za

Summary: The GSB is a values-driven organisation. Its values encapsulate the School’s aspirations and the commitments it makes to everyone with a stake in the business school.

About Graduate Business School

The GSB is no ordinary business school. Although small by international standards, it wields a reputation for innovation and excellence that has helped it to take its place amongst the very best in the world.

In 2009 it was voted by Eduniversal as the top business school in Africa in terms of influence for the second year running (www.eduniversal.com).

The GSB is one of just two business schools in South Africa to be accredited by the European Foundation for Management Development, the recognised centre of excellence in its field in Europe. The School’s full-time MBA programme is also the only one in Africa to be ranked by the prestigious Financial Times Global Top 100 MBAs.

GSB Values:

Passionate about learning
Our core purpose is to create opportunities for our students, course delegates and employees to develop and grow through, all the while acknowledging the need to address the inheritance of inequality in our society.

Encourage a spirit of innovation and inquiry
We provide opportunities to create and innovate, committing to the belief that different ideas foster positive change and progress.

Strive to enable personal growth and development
We share ideas, learn from one another, work to build team and personal relationships, resolve conflict, and encourage the expression of opinion in the workplace.

Take pride in work at the UCT GSB
Delegates are encouraged to express and exercise their individual talents, thereby taking partial responsibility for helping the GSB achieve its vision and goals.

Believe in a supportive UCT GSB community
We recognise the participation and contribution of our stakeholders in sharing the GSB vision and reaching our goals.

Accept responsibility to act ethically with professional integrity
We live by equality and firmly believe in treating each person fairly and with respect.

Academic Courses & Programmes

Since [JN1] , Through the UCT Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) (now the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship) the GSB has directed its efforts in training and developing entrepreneurs towards three main strategic areas which include teaching & material development, research & public policy and business creation and support.

The overall strategy of the Graduate School of Business is to focus a large part of its activities in putting together programmes which will assist in the training and development of South African entrepreneurs.  This is done through meaningful interactions with entrepreneurs and students involving them in actual entrepreneurial projects which provide a hands-on and experiential learning process.  The purpose is to encourage people of all races and gender to start their own businesses thereby providing much needed employment in the new South Africa.  The most unique aspect of the programmes is the holistic approach it has to teaching.  The curriculum covers all aspects of business critical to an entrepreneur, such as accounting, finance, law, management, sales and marketing to name just a few.  Because many new ventures include, and are   often started by non-business people, the approach is to create a collaborative classroom environment with students contributing different talents to the entrepreneurial table.  They learn how to identify opportunities, make a plan, launch a venture, grow a business and harvest it.

Main initiatives include:

MBA Programme Elective courses are offered to both modular and full-time MBA students  in Planning New Ventures.  This programme, which is a popular elective course on the MBA is very practical and experiential in approach and satisfies the changing needs of the South African business environment and the desire of many MBA students to move from the corporate world into starting their own business.

Corporate Learning Programme A series of modular Project Planning courses with middle and senior management were conducted through the Corporate Learning Programme.

The organisations involved during 2009 and 2010 include:

• AngloGold Ashanti MDP Programme

• AngloGold Ashanti IMPD Programme

• Post-graduate Diploma in Retail Management

Undergraduates
The programme to introduce entrepreneurship to final year under-graduate and post-graduate students on the main campus of UCT continues. Planning New Venture courses were conducted for a number of Faculties and departments all based on the experiential approach in which students are required to work on specific “live” projects and ultimately prepare a feasibility plan for presentation to members of faculty or outside observers.

SMME Development Programmes
Research carried out as part of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, has shown a number of common training requirements for small businesses.  These are:

• Very low sales by small enterprises to government and large businesses owning to unfamiliarity with the tendering processes.

• Low levels of expertise amongst small entrepreneurs in marketing, accounting, operational and human resources management, and

• The inability of small businesses to enter the value chains of large corporations owning to their “invisibility” to procurement managers.

The GSB believes that it is vitally important to empower small business owners and managers with the tools necessary to run a successful business.  To this end, the CIE offered a variety of short courses specifically designed to assist entrepreneurs in developing their basic business skills.  These courses included topics such as basic administration and finance, operations, marketing and strategy.  A further set of higher level master classes were also offered which included topics such as tendering, HR management, selling and marketing, strategy, accounting and differentiating your small business.  All were exceptionally well attended and have proved to be immensely popular.

The Raymond Ackerman Academy of Entrepreneurial Development (RAA) The RAA in the Western Cape was started in February 2005 funded by a generous grant from the Ackerman Foundation.  The goal of the Academy is to take school leavers primarily, but not necessarily, from previously disadvantaged communities and to encourage a spirit of entrepreneurship as a means to personal development and job creation in the South African context.  This Academy was expanded to Soweto in Johannesburg in 2009 as a result of a generous grant from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women Programme.

The Academy’s objectives are to:

• Develop numeric and financial literacy skills.

• Promote self-development and life-long learning skills, and

• Impart business skills

With the advent of the Bertha Centre for Social Innovation and Entrpereneurship at the UCT GSB in October 2011, there are some exciting new developments taking place with regards to boosting entrepreneurs. Watch this space.