An assessment into entrepreneurial mind set amongst the SMEs at Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality in the Eastern Cape

The Eastern Cape is one of the poorest provinces in South Africa. It is devoid of minerals such as coal, gold and diamonds, which are the main drivers and major role players in the economy of South Africa. In as much as it is one of the poorest provinces in the Eastern Cape, especially in terms of mineral resources, it is also the richest province in terms of natural resources from grazing land to forests, marine life to rich farming soils, water to wilderness. Major industries include the automotive, tourism, agriculture, agroprocessing as well as renewable energy.

Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs are good drivers of economic growth. The backbone of any economy is the small business sector. Many African economies are prone to volatile environments, but their economies have been able to survive those situations because of the strong base of economy run by SMEs. The Eastern Cape, but more particularly the BCM municipality can follow this path. If we are to make an impact in job creation here in the BCM we need to seriously drive SMEs growth and stop ghettoizing them. At the same time, we need to drive innovation if we are to sustain that growth.

This study aimed tomake an assessment into entrepreneurial mind set amongst the SMEs at Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality in the Eastern Cape,investigate the role of entrepreneurship and small business in the economic development of Buffalo City Municipality and to eventually recommend interventions that improve sustainable entrepreneurship in the area.

The research made use of the quantitative approach to make an assessment into entrepreneurial mind set amongst the SMEs at Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality in the Eastern Cape.The Stratified purposeful sampling method was selected for the respondents for the purpose of this study. In stratified sampling, the population was divided into groups, each group was selected randomly, and the researcher first divided the population into groups based on a relevant characteristic and then select participants within those groups. Stratified random sampling is typically used by the researcher to ensure that specific subgroups of people are adequately represented within a sample.

Some of the most common strata that are often used by researchers, and which were also used in this study were gender, age, race, nationality and educational level being but a few. What informed the researchers use of stratified sampling method was in order to examine those different subgroups within a population, and to further to observe relationships between these subgroups. In this way the researcher ensured that subjects from each of the groups were included in the final sample. The study sample consisted of 30 participants. Major restriction is sample size was as a result of the current COVID-19 the world is going through.

The research concluded that with policy recommendations to the BCM municipality, as well as recommendations to SMEs in the BCM area. These recommendations included, but were not limited to; Invest in regional cluster initiatives that network entrepreneurs and assist them in the development of new products and markets; set up a regional product innovation fund that would provide seed funds to entrepreneurs for developing innovative products; invest in cluster-based infrastructure;provide incentive funds for joint marketing and distribution projects for clusters; support initiatives that allow entrepreneurs and their workforce to find each other; expand markets for clusters through government procurement policies.