Building businesses

A senior pastor at a Soweto based church, he balances his passion for developing people on a spiritual and personal level with his love for influencing people and developing them to succeed in the business world.

He brings his strong business acumen and experiences in managing his own business to bear in successfully managing and leading projects. Besides running his own non-profit enterprise which focuses on providing free entrepreneurial training to churches, he has also worked as a strategy advisor for various corporates to develop company systems and processes and prepare and present business proposals and plans for them. This has seen him develop documents like the Gauteng Youth Situational Analysis and Future Demographics Outlook for the Gauteng Department’s 2015-2019 Youth Development Strategic Planning Process.

Liaising with clients, providing guidance to small and mid-sized businesses and analysing the problems and potential risks facing businesses are part of his portfolio, as is advising them on how to become more efficient and profitable. It is a good fit for him as it requires his skills amassed over the years: vast experience in problem solving, communication, understanding business practices, marketing trends and research skills – in which he has 14 years’ experience.

Nkosilathi’s role also involves actively networking, seeking new business, following up on leads and initiating leads that will bring new corporate clients. He then conceptualises the proposals and designs the programmes pitched to the clients. Before he took on the business development lead role, he served, and still serves as business advisory to about eight businesses until the programme ends in April 2019. Here he is instrumental in taking small businesses from infancy to being supply-ready in the value chain of corporates. This entails coaching activities to implement business development support interventions.

As well as providing customised training, Nkosilathi is involved with coaching interventions where he is responsible for conducting a needs or diagnostic analyses. He says:

“This gives an indication of the maturity of a business and identifies where there is a skills deficiency. Then you devise an implementation plan, where part of the upskilling will come from training and the rest will come from coaching by the business advisor who advises further on the implementation plan that was drawn up.

“We record these success stories and the rate of success is high. I still get several businesses who are no longer on the programme but who continue to call me for support based on the fact that we had provided support to them.”

Changes are tracked for Tushiyah and for the client who wants to ensure that all targets are met and to ensure a follow up programme for those that performed well and were still invested in the programme.

While business development affords Nkosilathi the opportunity to influence more people it also means that he can shape the way a programme can be run. He says:

“I constantly have to ensure a balance in the various roles that I play because each is different. For example, when wearing the advisory hat, I am the centre of knowledge. As a business development lead however, I have to make sure that what is brought forward satisfies the sponsoring client. Secondly, you also want to make sure that it is going to have an impact on the participants and lastly, ensure that the company gets value for the service being provided.”

He also holds a Bachelor of Commerce with Honours degree, and a post Graduate Diploma in Project Management both obtained in 2012, in Zimbabwe.

A great passion for growing businesses and a solid business insight ensures a successful experience for all as Nkosilathi delivers on Tushiyah’s mandate to ensure that stakeholders are given the necessary tools to succeed in business.

About Tushiyah Advisory Services

Tushiyah is a 100% female and 60% black-owned advisory services company and one of the leading implementers of ESD (Enterprise and Supplier Development) in South Africa. Their role is to essentially act as a conduit between corporates and SMEs, creating an environment beneficial to satisfying the business connections both need to succeed. Tushiyah means “sound, efficient wisdom resulting in long-lasting success” which is the core value that Tushiyah delivers. The team is comprised of highly qualified and experienced enterprise and supplier development specialists, local economic development specialists, programme managers, business advisors, industry specialists, and accredited trainers in South Africa. Each team member is carefully selected for their compatibility with the company’s core values and ethos and for their expertise. The company was established in Johannesburg in 2008 and operates nationally with offices in Harrismith and Durban, and associates at seven urban and rural centres nationally.