ZB SMEs Expo was interesting, it needs to come back bigger next year

ZB held its SMEs Expo Harare Edition, and it was an interesting event. As you may recall, the event aimed to ’empower Harare’s vibrant SME sector and accelerate its growth.’ We attended the event in person and observed firsthand what accelerating SME growth looks like.

There were two aspects to the Expo, the first was a workshop where SMEs would get some insights from veteran businesspeople and other key people in the economy and then there was an exhibition of their own products and services.

Veteran business lady, Dr Ndlukula, the founder and boss at Securico graced the workshop. Her session was the highlight of the whole thing, in my opinion.

She shared practical insights and personal stories about how she has navigated the challenging and oftentimes corrupt Zimbabwean landscape. She shared some of her failures and how she rebounded

I’m afraid the other sessions weren’t that great. It wasn’t the presenters’ fault. They appeared to have prepared well but they were not given enough time.

See, that whole ‘There’s no hurry in Africa’ thing bit again and the workshop started hours after its scheduled time. So, the second and third sessions were rushed just so the presenters could say something.

I do not exaggerate when I say they were given three and a half minutes each. They went beyond that a little, but you can imagine, it wasn’t ideal.

Even so, the crowd engaged with them and some of the ones I talked to heard enough to know that follow-ups were in order. So, all is well that works out well, I guess. However, that’s the one element that could be improved on next time.

The Deputy Minister of Women’s Affairs, Community and SMEs was the guest of honour.

There was a fair bit of networking during the exhibition part of proceedings. I saw a lot of business card and flyer exchanges and I hope some of that activity led to new business deals.

I went around the exhibits and found some interesting products and services. You can see some of what I saw on our TikTok.

Let’s hope the Expo becomes an annual affair. There is a lot of value in events like these even if there’s room for improvement.

Also read:

• ZB hosting an SMEs Expo meant to accelerate SME growth, go explore the exhibition
• ZB unveils Innovation Hub to experiment on new services and to incubate startups