Customer Service & Communications

How a business engages and presents itself to customers is key to its success. Through RENEW’s customer service and communications training, businesses learn to evaluate their current performance and create a systematic approach to grow and improve goodwill among customers, employees, investors, suppliers and the government. Internal (employee) communications, media relations, customer service, government relations and other interpersonal-related interactions are integrated into the training based on the needs of the business.

Deliverables include:
• Customer service and communications training
• Plan for integrating various communications tools
• Connections with vendors, tools and techniques to build the SME’s ability to communicate effectively

Marketing

It is vital for any business to understand customer needs and how to satisfy them; we focus on marketing as the management process through which goods or services move from conception to customer. RENEW’s marketing training sessions help managers and employees evaluate their product, price, place (distribution) and promotion strategies. The SME will be evaluated and training will be tailored based on specific business needs. For example, some will need new product packaging while others may need targeted pricing based on customer research.

Deliverables include:
• Marketing workshop to establish clear roles and cadence between management, product development and marketing functions.
• Outline of relevant market research options

Branding & Website Identity

Growing businesses must build a brand and a loyal following to sustain market share. The brand reflects how employees interact with the public, the look and feel of a web site, the perceived value of a product and a host of other intangibles that play a crucial role in success. RENEW works with businesses to evaluate and improve their corporate identity and brand. We take company leaders through a process to identify company values and strategic statements and then help them translate those outcomes into a look and feel for a brand.

Deliverables may include:
• Brand analysis, recommendation and development of website
• Workshop on design ramifications for products, services and marketing collateral

E-Commerce & Business Linkages

Growing businesses in developing countries often lack the information and social networks needed to package their products in ways that are attractive in the global marketplace. In addition, they often lack the infrastructure and training needed to connect and communicate with global consumers and partners via the internet. RENEW’s business database provides SMEs with a larger pool of potential partners to learn from and connect with, whether across the city or around the world.

Deliverables include:
• E-commerce strategy
• Introductions to global business partners, including any multinational corporations interested in that space
• Recommendation for product placement to enter new markets

Financial Management

As a company grows, its financial infrastructure must keep pace. Managers and accountants alike need a solid foundation in generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP), externally-audited financial statements and an efficient system to connect financial indicators with operational ones. RENEW will assess where the business could improve its financial reporting and management; from this assessment we will develop clear recommendations that will help managers increase transparency of spending and resource allocation and position the business for future investment or acquisition.

Deliverables include:
• Financial management evaluation and recommendations
• Financial management training

IT Support

As businesses grow, they increasingly depend upon information technology. It’s easy to overspend in an effort to stay on the leading edge of the IT curve — or under spend because resources are tight. Thankfully, affordable, modular and scalable IT solutions are becoming much more common and accessible. RENEW has extensive experience that will help businesses develop and implement an enterprise architecture that will deal with new requirements as they arise. RENEW will work with the company’s management and IT team to help design and implement more streamlined IT systems to maximize efficiency and return on investment. Additionally, RENEW is developing our own, freely-available desktop widget that will help African SMEs translate day-to-day performance into strategic insight.

Deliverables include:
• IT systems assessment
• Menu of scalable IT options with a strategy for navigating
• Connections to local vendors and IT professionals who can help implement the chosen strategy
• In the future: desktop tool that will aggregate operational data for better decision-making

Legal & Transactional Support

While Africa provides a wonderful variety of business opportunities, there will always be a few constants: one of them is legal expertise. RENEW’s core team has expertise in legal services and management of regulatory and taxation issues. In addition, our network of local legal counsel can help navigate each step while providing negotiation and dispute resolution of investment and operational issues which may arise.

Deliverables include:
• Legal risk assessment
• Access to network of legal advisors and policy specialists

Human Capital Support

People are the backbone of a business. RENEW aims to help build great companies by helping management recruit, retain, train and develop the employees the company needs to be competitive. The expectations set by management are core to the quality of its people; RENEW encourages leaders to adopt an explicit code of conduct that holds managers to a high standard. We also train management on standard human resource practices that will maximize employee satisfaction and minimize turnover.

Deliverables include:
• Position descriptions and core skills requirements
• Human capital gap assessment