Fred de Boer is one of 1,300 Dutch volunteer business coaches who travel to various countries to train entrepreneurs.
With 35 years of service, he is the longest-serving member of the Netherlands NGO PUM: We Grow Together.
“We exchange our knowledge and networks,” he said.
“I visited East London to coach a group of entrepreneurs who are members of Nafcoc.
“PUM has a fund that allows us to travel to any of the 34 countries where we are active, and in which we have 1,500 projects.
“But we are all volunteers, and don’t accept any salaries or other remuneration.
“The purpose is sharing the skills that we have built up in the Netherlands over many years.”
Nafcoc EC president Chwayita Zituta said De Boer had worked wonders in his short time in East London.
“He has managed to connect us to a big retail store in the Netherlands for exporting agricultural products.
“We got all Nafcoc members in the agriculture sector to attend a session with Fred.
“We have arranged meetings with Transnet, premier Oscar Mabuyane, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz SA.”
De Boer said he was in the city for 14 days to work on upskilling those in the entrepreneur group whom Nafcoc had selected for training.
Before he retired, De Boer owned three consultancy firms which focused on management strategy, marketing and sales, and nationalisation.
The next step is tactics on how to handle the various tasks. And we don’t sit back waiting for them to deliver. We stay involved so the last step is continuity
He said the first step was evaluating the group to understand exactly what their needs were and then prepare action plans which answered individual needs and shortfalls.
“We try to operate very fast, building enthusiasm, which means the course is testing.
“We demand a lot from the participants.
“By the end of the course, they all have a strategy in place, effectively a light at the end of the tunnel.
“The next step is tactics on how to handle the various tasks. And we don’t sit back waiting for them to deliver. We stay involved so the last step is continuity.”
The follow-up procedures are equally demanding, both from De Boer’s side and that of the delegates.
De Boer writes a report on the outcome of the programme and an evaluation of the delegates, in which he advises the Netherland ministries of economics and foreign affairs on the potential for another course with Nafcoc.
Both ministries are interested in building businesses and relationships.
“There is a massive annual event in Amsterdam where small entrepreneur businesses, from developing countries, are invited to attend.
“It is a great opportunity to alleviate poverty. In fact, when we were founded, one of our pillars was to fight poverty.
“We don’t concentrate on the poverty issue in this country because there are many countries a lot poorer than this one.”
PUM introduces the successful entrepreneurs to the Netherlands, which gives them a huge opportunity to grow their product base.
It is up to Nafcoc to organise them and get them to Europe.
“We don’t invite members of the organising board, because they don’t do business.
“I recall that 20 years ago, when I visited this country, I met a group of village entrepreneurs, and they told me the men make the money, but the women make the business.
“Their business was beads. Because the Dutch take Christmas very seriously, the village craft women wanted to make and export trinkets to hang on the trees.”
De Boer felt the idea had merit and took samples home.
The Dutch buyers liked the concept, but it failed because there wasn’t the capacity in the village to meet the demand.
“So you learn from this and create strategic alliances for manufacturing.
“It is preparing people to solve these sorts of problems that makes this job so worthwhile.”
To listen to Ted Keenan interviewing Fred de Boer and discussing PUM’s impact on new entrepreneurs, go to Iono (DispatchLIVE) at noon today.
DispatchLIVE
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