Enterprises University of Pretoria helps businesses upskill and plan for the future

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought huge disruption and had a devastating impact on the SA economy, with dire consequences to businesses.

On March 27 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a national lockdown, which aimed to flatten the curve of the coronavirus. This meant that businesses had to close offices, and employees and consumers were asked to stay at home. The initial period was extended and the country has now been in lockdown for more than a third of this year.

With most businesses’ doors shut and all operations halted, profits and cash flows dropped at a high speed. Many businesses went into financial distress and thousands of jobs were lost. The government introduced a business turnaround & recovery strategy to businesses in distress to help them navigate through these unprecedented times.  

On July 22 2020, deputy minister of the employment & labour department Boitumelo Moloi announced at a virtual press briefing that the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) will provide R104m to Productivity SA (an entity of the department and the Business Turnaround and Recovery programme). The funds aim to support 6,000 small- and medium-sized enterprises to improve productivity, and to preserve and create jobs. 

How can the University of Pretoria (UP) help your organisation?

During these uncertain times, Enterprises University of Pretoria understands the need for businesses to stay agile. To this, we offer solutions for businesses that need to restructure, plan for the future, downsize and avoid retrenchments or upskill through learning, unlearning and relearning.  

UP’s research solutions provide research and advisory solutions across the full life cycle of services, not limited to turnaround management and business rescue solutions, and workplace skills indexing research and advisory services. These solutions provide companies with a powerful mechanism to navigate through turbulent economic conditions. 

While training solutions provide a comprehensive portfolio of training programmes and short courses, UP’s business management and entrepreneurship short courses, which include outcomes-based monitoring and evaluation implementation, effective risk management and business management, are designed to equip delegates with the tools to face the challenges businesses encountered as a result of the pandemic. 

Contact UP for more information on the business management and entrepreneurship short courses. You can also get in touch for information on its range of training programmes and collaborative services. 

This article was paid for by the University of Pretoria.