First National Bank (FNB) announces the opening of applications for participation in the eighth round of the FNB 10X Entrepreneur (10X-e) Accelerator Programme, which enhances the ability of Small and Medium Enterprises (“SMEs”) with exceptional potential to scale up successfully.
SMEs are key to fuelling job growth in South Africa, but their ability to do so is highly dependent on their ability to scale up – that is, to continue to grow efficiently and sustainably.
FNB 10X Entrepreneur (10X-e) Accelerator Programme
The FNB 10X-e Accelerator Programme, delivered by Edge Growth Accelerate (Pty) Ltd aims to dramatically increase the SME scale-up success rate by driving critical management behaviour changes to promote job creation and to unlock further and improved capital, talent and support.
The 10X-e Programme arose from FNB and Edge Growth’s experience in administering the Vumela Fund, a component of FNB’s Enterprise and Supplier development (“ESD”) portfolio, through which finance is made available to majority-Black-owned high-growth SMEs.
FNB and Edge Growth noticed that the executive teams of many of the ventures supported by Vumela, even after accessing finance through the fund, would reach key growth inflection points after three to five years and thereafter either fail outright, or struggle with overwork and burnout resulting in stagnating business growth.
Heather Lowe, head of SME Development at FNB Commercial, explains: “The 10X-e Programme has been developed on the back of a thorough and wide-ranging research process to examine the root causes of this failure to scale. We realised that to make the enterprises scalable we had to first concentrate on making people scalable, and unlock the constraints preventing them from evolving as leaders of expanding enterprises.”
By drawing on FNB and Edge Growth’s significant track record in ESD, the 10X-e Programme was formed to multiply the chances of businesses and leaders scaling up successfully. The two-year 10X-e Programme is designed to support and enhance organisational management, enterprise building and enterprise leadership through a structured process.
The Programme begins with leadership psychology, as Jason Goldberg, founder and CEO of Edge Growth, explains.
“10X-e begins with addressing the mindset of individuals, and cascades out into practices, systems, and structures. We’ve found that entrepreneurs sometimes take pride in avoiding advice from anyone they don’t see as fighting the same battles they do. Hence our coaches include seasoned entrepreneurs who have built their own companies and walked the same road as the 10X-e participants.”
In addition to coaching, the 10x-e Programme makes use of bootcamps and toolkits that allow leadership to build on proven solutions to scale functional systems – from strategy to management, marketing to finance – more quickly. The specific systems that are targeted differ for each participant, and are determined through Edge Growth’s sophisticated diagnostic tool, which also provides useful benchmarks and evaluation frameworks.
FNB 10X Entrepreneur (10X-e) Accelerator Programme targeting SMEs with potential
The 10X-e focuses on gazelles: SMEs with significant potential for growth. They typically have a large prospective market, an innovative product, and impressive leadership. They’re diverse in terms of the sectors in which they work, but are similar in that they’re young, have headcounts of around 40 or fewer, and are hungry to scale but experiencing growing pains.
Inoxico, an African Information Bureau, is one of the businesses that has benefited from the 10X-e Programme. Inoxico was established in 2009 to directly address the need for a more integrated and innovative approach to commercial risk mitigation in Africa.
Dominique Pitot, Inoxico CEO, recalls the benefits that the 10X-e Programme delivered.
“We had a culture of innovation and a young dynamic team, which worked perfectly in the start-up phase. But we soon got bogged down trying to reinvent the wheel. 10X-e was a lifeline for us. We realised that when growing a business, the last thing you should be doing is to have to keep on inventing new practices. Instead, 10X-e helped us to focus on the portion of the business that set us apart.”
The act of simplifying business processes by using proven methodologies has seen Inoxico’s annual turnover rise 40% to R35 million since joining 10X-e. Inoxico has also employed an additional five staff members, bringing their headcount up to 70.
Applications for participation in the next round of the FNB 10X-e Accelerator Programme are now open to businesses that:
- Are founder-led, with 3 (three) or more senior leaders with complimentary skills.
- Have an innovative business offering (preference will be given to businesses in industries aligned to the National Economic Reconstruction and Recovery Plan).
- Have an annual turnover of < R50m (less than fifty million rand)
- Have more than 10 (ten) staff members.
- Are majority (at least 51%) Black-owned.
If your business meets the above criteria and you wish to apply, please visit the FNB website (www.fnb.co.za)) > click on ‘For my business”> scroll down to “Value adds and rewards” and select “Business Hub” > select “FNB 10XE Accelerator Programme”. There will be a link on the Programme landing page to the application form.
You will be required to apply on the website before 06 September 2021.
A maximum of 12 businesses will be selected to be part of the 10X-e Programme, which will begin in October 2021 and run for 24 months.