Education

With good training you can go from zero to hero in business

Do you want to run your own small business, but don’t quite know where to start?

Take the idea of your product or service, combine it with some learning and you can soon be turning your business ideas into profit, says Natalie Rabson of Boston City Campus.

  “Starting and running a small business is regarded as one of the best solutions to the high unemployment figures worldwide,” she comments. “While this is a great idea it must be combined with good training and skills, as well as guidance to be able to succeed in the small business arena. Fortunately, you can easily enrol for a course in small business, as you would in any other field of work.”

  Natalie recommends three specific courses in the Boston stable of commerce qualifications to get going in a successful business.

  “The first one that comes to mind is the Boston short learning program for the Small Business Owner,” she says. “It can be completed within 6-9 months and gives you the basic skills you need to start running your own business or run a business on behalf of someone else. In total it contains nine different modules that lead to 48 Higher Education credits on National Qualifications Framework (NQF) Level 5 and 14 credits on NQF Level 6.”

  The programme includes interesting topics on useful skills such as Windows; word processing; spreadsheets; business management techniques; principles of entrepreneurship; integrated marketing communication; and introduction to business accounting, which covers the basic principles and procedures of accounting.

  Once you complete the course, you will be able to apply the principles of general management as well as human resource management to real business situations. The course also develops your entrepreneurial and project management skills.

  “The whole focus of the small business owner short learning program is to give you the necessary skills that you can put into practice from day one as a small business owner,” says Natalie. “Identifying a great business opportunity or coming up with an innovative new product is only the beginning. To go from zero to hero in business, you need real business know-how and tenacity, as we have seen in the case of our great businessmen like the late Sol Kerzner in hospitality, Richard Maponya in diversified business and Mark Shuttleworth in IT”. 

  Kerzner didn’t invent hotels; they existed for ages before he appeared on the scene. But through hard work, business ingenuity and creativity he took hotels and hospitality to another level.

  With business acumen and practical skills, start-up businesses and part-time ways to earn money can be developed into sustainable businesses. 

  The Chocolate Den situated in Edenvale is a small business that has slowly grown in various aspects such as service and online availability. During the Corona lockdown they have offered free online training in various skills that can be used to start your OWN small business! And the ‘tools’ required can be ordered online. Excellent adaptability to not only grow their own business, but assist others to create their own small home business that can be run from home. All you need are your small business owner skills.

   The other qualifications that Natalie recommends for aspirant business-owners are the Higher Certificate in Business Management Practice and the Diploma in Business Management.

  The Higher Certificate in Business Management is a Boston higher education program that can be completed in one year. It covers modules that include computer literacy, business management, entrepreneurship, socioeconomics, basic accounting, industrial psychology, company law and business communication.

  The Diploma in Business Management is a three-year course on NQF level 6. It covers similar modules as the other business qualifications mentioned but goes into greater depth and has additional modules such as brand management, applied research, applied psychology and project management.

  For more information and assistance in selecting the qualification that is best suited to your career dreams, go to www.boston.co.za, or call 011-551 2000. 

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