Absa Bank | Agribusiness training for SMEs

The problem

Absa Bank Ghana is committed to promoting sustainability in SME business growth, nurturing profitability, and fostering employment creation across Ghana. In the pursuit of this goal, Absa Bank secured funding from the Mastercard Foundation under its Young Africa Works (YAWs) programme for a capacity-building programme directed towards SMEs. Absa needed to find a specialist food and agribusiness training and consultancy company that would be able to determine the operational gaps impeding the growth of SMEs.

We facilitated this project and helped to identify what solutions were required to address the capacity building and training gaps that existed. We also identified what was required to deliver growth and long-lasting impact to these SMEs to increase wealth and jobs for the youth in Ghana. An engaging curriculum needed to be developed for the training and delivered in an interactive way.

The solution

We first carried out a diagnostic exercise on all SMEs participating in the programme. For this important first step in the project, we visited SMEs at their own premises and spoke to senior management members and founders. One primary point of contact was chosen for each business and elected to participate in the agribusiness training.

The diagnostic exercise was carried out with each business, data was aggregated, and a needs assessment was conducted on the results to determine the appropriate solutions to prescribe.

It became apparent that there were four core areas in which SMEs felt a lack of skills was limiting their growth. These areas were supply chain management, HR management, operations & technology and financial management. Farrelly Mitchell designed agribusiness training specifically targeted to the audience.

Our priority was to ensure training was impactful and delivered value to the SMEs participating. To do this we conducted thorough desk research on the topics and distilled key points, learnings and activities into engaging presentations. All training modules were designed to be highly interactive and to encourage participation and discussion.

The results

Our targeted, impact-driven agribusiness training modules were delivered to SME groups in Accra and Tamale. The training curriculum was well-suited to the audience due to the needs assessment that had been conducted and participants were highly engaged.

Feedback from participants after the agribusiness training was impressive as each SME manager presented efficient operational strategies to grow their businesses and create job opportunities.