Avocado Vision Analysis

It has been two decades since Jules Newton had a vision; an Avocado vision. From humble beginnings, the core focus of the business was in training.
In essence, empowering people to develop to their full potential. Avocado Vision has stood the test of time and as it has evolved, it has enthusiastically embraced the principles of Transformation. In 2015, Newton sold Avocado Vision to BTS, an international market leader in supporting organisations with their Leadership, Strategic Alignment, Business Acumen and Sales challenges. Avo now has the benefit of BTS’s international best practice and resources, as they meaningfully continue to participate in a Transforming South Africa.
Jules Newton, Avocado Vision

The conversation at the World Economic
Small businesses mean good business for South Africa. If the sector is successful, it can employ far more people than the corporate sector, with jobs distributed across many geographical regions and communities. Therefore, fittingly, a lot of money is being directed towards developing small business nowadays, which can only be a positive thing. It is estimated that 3% of South African businesses net profit is going towards Enterprise and Supplier Development (ESD), coupled with Government spending on small business development, left and right, there’s a serious chunk of cash out there supporting this worthy cause. However, how this money is being spent, is another question.
My in-the-field experience working within the ED sector has revealed some trends in the approach to development. There are the businesses which are set up with and supported by corporate giants. These are often used to outsource non-core operations, which could be in the form of a spin-off cleaning or security service, or printing and production operations where ex-employees are funded and supported to supply services to an organisation through their supply
Secondly, is the ‘here’s a great idea to retool our employees into outsourced suppliers’ approach. The training and support of small businesses in these cases often leaves a lot to be desired. In my experience, many organisations implement great technical and process training, in terms of the operational business needs, but weak, well-meaning ‘Business Skills’ workshops. They begin with the inevitable PowerPoint slide on “The Qualities of an Entrepreneur”, and then move on to “How to write a Business, Sales and Marketing plan”; “How to Access Funding to Start your Business””; and in some extreme cases, I’ve seen,
“How to Develop a Bankable Business Plan”. Most of this stuff is written by university professors, MBA graduates, training specialists, or even by people within the large organisation who are setting up the supplier development programme. I have literally seen ‘Internal’ programmes orchestrated by organisations teaching unskilled potential suppliers about business on PowerPoint presentations, showing them: ‘This is an income statement’; ‘This is a balance sheet’and then feel like they’ve done the work of teaching the necessary business skills. Don’t go this route. Get practitioners who are specialists in small business development. They need to understand that small businesses have a different DNA from large ones and not all