Please also have a look at the previous assignments, you can still contribute to all of them:
A: Personal Characteristics , B: Resources , C: Skills
GreEn Compass Survey D – What are the needs for GreEn?
GreEn Compass Survey D – What are the needs for GreEn?
5
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This work by GEF Forums is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0This website has been created by our team using WordPress.
forum@generation-europe.eu
An ideal entrepreneurial enviroment for my business in my country context means:
-Access to professional emploees.(Education system role)
-Long term credits with low interest rate.
-Grants for young entrpreneurs
-Elimination of monopolies
-Less bureaucracy
-Government support for national producers
- Fair competition
- Reduction of export duties
- Qualitative Infrastructure
-No corruption (very important, and relevant for my country!!!!!!!!!!!!)
-Abolition of visa regime
-Favorable investment climate for both national and foreign investors.
-Country risk reduction
1
In the Ideal World a young person with an Idea is not watched as a madman. The Idea is analized as if it came from anyone else, assessing the pros and cons, and the young entrepreneur is advised to work more on this or that aspect, through constructive critics aimed to make him and his Idea grow stronger.
The credit, in the ideal world, is easy to access with a good Idea and a proper Business Plan, thanks to banks and foundations that really work with the aim of a genuine territorial development, without nepotism and power games.
In the Ideal World you don’t need to pay cash a chartered accountant just to help you with the bureaucracy, and you don’t need to offer him a share just because you need a well done work under bureaucratical/tax aspects.
The Ideal World supports young entrepreneurs with courses and seminars, organized by Universities and foundations, chambers of commerce etc, to spread an entrepreneurial culture, a basic start up knowledge, and provide everyone with the basic tools and skills to success.
An Ideal World has a HUB to find the best network and keep on working!
2
We have The HUB (Milan).
We have active Universities and Foundations, as well as Chambers of Commerce who aim to stimulate the entrepreneurship.
Some of the foundations and banks are genuinely oriented to the territory, but they are few.
3
Sometimes we’re still watched as madmen.
We DO have a soffocating bureaucracy and a heavy tax system
The business idea would be what I’m already doing now designing dresses from recycled parachutes and jewelry from dead wood: http://www.kondakis.biz
The support I would imaginary receive along the way would be:
a transparent system without corruption
It would be easy to get a working permit in Kenya
I would pay less taxes as I am a part of reducing pollution in the fashion industry and a percentage of my sales goes to education girls
I would not have to pay import duty on every single parachute as it is for a recycling purpose
People would give me their old parachutes for free for the same reasons
I would be helped by the different embassies to get a marked in their countries
I would have a business coach who could help me in moments of doubt
I would get the same chance to exhibit and participate in fashion shows even though I’m white and not originally from Kenya.
I would not have power black outs often in my workshop
There would be more skilled labor so I would not have to do all the training of my employees etc. in-house
-These are the things that would make my life easier and obviously also the things that are missing in Kenya.
On the other hand we have lower salaries which makes it easier to get a business going and we have a beautiful landscape that makes it easier to do great photo shoots of collections etc.
Also there is quite an easy tax system for businesses of my size which makes it simple to do the tax returns yourself and keep the overview. Furthermore there is not a lot of competition in Kenya, so you can grow fast if you have a good idea as people are hungry for new stuff.
1)In the ideal case, there would be people who demand for what i serve/produce. Aware consumer who knows what they pay for. Mature market conditions!
Incentives from government for making sustainable jobs/enterpreneurships more attractive. This can be direct financial support as well as tax deduction. Other than that, government can promote these products in public offices.
Support from experienced people. Since every field needs different expertise, and since you are only one person, you definitely need support. So, in dream world, there are people who are volunteer to help you… or at least that kind of services that you can pay for!
Also, if we talk about dream world, there should not be any boundaries… World is open(since it is a dream!)
2)In PR days organized in universities, there are some firms,and universities’ foundations who give support in training part. Also, governmental foundations and NGOs which support women enterpreneurship.
3)Enterpreneurship would be in agenda of governments!
Sorry if I mixed the questions up. There are many interdependencies between them.
1)
Many ideas could be turned into a new business, which doesn’t mean all of them deserve it. The process should look pretty much like it looks now, but with more accessible (key word) fundraising, advisory etc. Cuts on red tape are desired, but not crucial for the success. All in all, you don’t set up a new enterprise on a daily basis, so you may go through it once in your lifetime. The problem arises if the bureaucracy is permanent and shadows you all the time. Tax alleviations would also be helpful, especially in heavily ‘taxed’ societies (e.g. costs of employment are very high in Poland due to social security and pension systems). But what has to be really tackled, is the access to capital. Only few banks are focused on SMEs, virtually none of them is actually able to tailor its services to greenfield initiatives. Analyzing business plans is just not what banks particularly like (and it’s a must if you want to assess the creditworthiness of a start-up). That’s why the crucial constituent of our ‘ideal’ environment are venture capital funds. The stronger they are, the better for entrepreneurs. Whenever possible, they may be supported by the authorities (IMO, Polish KFK is a model example: http://www.kfk.org.pl/?page=Structure&id=1).
2)
It’s actually not that bad. Well, equity gap and corruption prevail in some markets. But markets are driven by money. We don’t need to harass businessmen in order to make them invest in this or that. They’ll do it anyway if they find it profitable. What we may do is to help them to spot the opportunity. The real challenge is to build favorable framework for making green business. And unfortunately it’s up to politicians and – of course – NGOs, but they are not very powerful in most countries.
3)
There are many aspects which are missing in Poland. But I’ll mention just two of them:
a. Entrepreneurship itself – we have not fully recovered from communism, people’s entrepreneurial skills are hindered and unexploited, the image of entrepreneurship is poor; if someone succeeds, it stirs allegations of corruption; public-private partnership is underdeveloped (also due to distrust between these two agents).
b. R&D expenditures – Poland belongs to the countries with a very low percentage of GDP spent on R&D; shame on us, this is definitely in need of a (rapid) change.