Business Plan Competition

The Business Plan Competition (BPC) is an effective program to build entrepreneurship skill and kick start Small Medium Enterprise (SME) development. The competition combines classroom training, one-to-one mentors, entrepreneurship coaching, networking and aftercare to support business start up and growth.  By working hand-in-hand with a network of local partners: local business schools, training and business advisory service providers, leading entrepreneurship associations, private sector mentors, local business leaders and financial institutions -  NLI facilitates collaboration and business activities among stakeholders.

Read the INAUGURAL NLI ANNUAL BUSINESS PLAN COMPETITION (BPC) Report

NLI AFTERCARE FOR BPC WINNERS

Winners will receive mentoring provided by accomplished professionals selected from leading organisations across the private sector and NLI as well as access to capital to execute their business ideas.   The program will run for 12 months.

Each winner will be monitored through the following processes:

• Monitoring
• Mentorship
• Business Facilitation

Monitoring

The aim is to ensure that the aftercare team is aware of the progress of the winners and can thus provide help as necessary. Monitoring  will be done as follows:

1. Each winner will be assigned to an aftercare team contact who will be responsible for communicating with the finalist at least once every month
2. Each winner is expected to submit reports every other month to their contact which details progress, financial reports, and requests-for-assistance from the aftercare support team
3. The aftercare team will hold a call every other month to discuss the reports and how to handle the requests
4. The progress of all winners will be communicated quarterly to the rest of the NLI network, to keep everyone abreast and give members of the network an avenue to help
5. Based on the results of monitoring, the winner with the most progress on their business plan receives the “Best Progress Award” at the next NLI awards ceremony. The premise is: Business planning is great, but ensure you actually execute

Mentorship

The aim is to ensure that the winners have access to relevant people who can provide them with mentorship and support:

1. Each winner should see their aftercare team contact as one of their mentors. The contact is assigned based on this potential i.e. knowledge of endeavor/industry. The aftercare team will also provide two additional mentors to each winner. These two mentors should be people who can give advice relating to their business venture. They should be senior enough such that they have relevant experience, but not too senior that they will likely be unreachable.
2. The monthly reports submitted under ‘monitoring’ above should also have information on mentorship activities.
3. The aftercare team contact will also engage with the mentors quarterly to get feedback from them on how each winner is doing.

Business Facilitation

The aim is to provide winners with resources that could help their business thrive:

1. Professional Clinics: The aftercare program plans to run clinics at least once-a-quarter to help winners address certain key areas that are important in building a business e.g. accounting, tax, strategy, HR, operations etc. Other finalists will also be invited to this program.  Speakers will be experts in specified fields.
2. Networking sessions: The aftercare program will hold a quarterly session with all winners where they will discuss their business, progress thus far etc. This will encourage participants to leverage off each other and build some healthy competition (this will be held in conjunction with the professional clinics on a quarterly basis to minimize logistics). Members of the NLI network will be encouraged to attend.
3. Consulting: The aftercare program will set up a volunteer consultant program staffed by professionals. These professionals will be assigned to provide formal consulting advice to our winners over the course of the year.
4. Events: Winners will be kept apprised of events that could be pertinent to their    development and encouraged to attend.