A Bizfarm programme · Enterprise & Supplier Development
Your suppliers are compliant.
Are they growing?
Most enterprise and supplier development programmes produce well-trained, fully compliant businesses that still can't win enough work. Grow Your Business® installs the commercial systems that turn a developed supplier into a growing one.
- Bizfarm · established 2010
- SETA-accredited New Venture Creation NQF4
- GrowthWheel Certified
- B-BBEE Level 2
- Registered Credit Provider (NCR)
- 16,000+ trained on Google Digital Skills
- Durban Chamber of Commerce & SABTIA members
- A team of PhDs, MBAs and CAs
ESD was never designed to generate revenue.
Ask a supplier who has just finished six to nine months of enterprise development what they learned, and you'll hear business model canvas, MVP, a pitch deck, SARS, CIPC, CSD. All of it necessary. None of it a customer.
Then month-end arrives. Salaries are due. And the pipeline is empty.
What ESD programmes deliver
- A business plan
- A pitch deck
- Tax clearance and CSD registration
- A polished founder
- Attendance and completion reports
What determines whether a supplier survives
- A pipeline of qualified opportunities
- Quotes and proposals that go out on time
- Follow-up that actually happens
- Customers who buy more than once
- Revenue that isn't dependent on one client
Compliance keeps a business legal. Revenue keeps it alive.
Does this sound like your programme?
If three or more of these are true, GYB was built for the gap you're looking at.
You run an active ESD or supplier development programme with real budget behind it.
Your beneficiaries complete the training. Your reports show attendance, certificates and compliance milestones.
Twelve months on, most of them still depend on you for the majority of their revenue.
Some of the same suppliers appear in this year's cohort as last year's.
You can report spend and participation. You cannot report revenue growth.
Nobody has ever shown you what a beneficiary's sales pipeline actually looks like.
None of that is a failure of effort. It's a gap in design. ESD programmes are built to develop suppliers, not to sell for them — and nothing in the standard curriculum closes that gap.
One programme. One outcome. Access to market.
GYB does not teach business planning, and it does not replace your compliance support — you should keep that. It does the single thing missing from almost every ESD programme in the country: it builds the supplier's ability to find customers, convert them, and keep them.
Not a course. An installation.
Founders don't leave with notes. They leave with a working CRM, a live pipeline, a follow-up rhythm and a set of numbers they check every week.
Not software. A method — installed into real tools.
GYB is a commercial operating discipline. Early in the programme it gets configured into a free CRM account opened in the founder's own name. They own the account. They own the customer data. It costs them nothing to keep running for as long as the business exists.
Not measured on attendance. Measured on revenue.
Every supplier is baselined in week one — revenue, customer count, pipeline. Everything after that is reported against that starting line.
The six commercial systems
Over 10 weeks, each supplier builds and starts running all six. Not as theory — as the way their business operates from that point on.
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Customer intelligence
Who exactly buys from them, why, and where more of those buyers are. Replaces "anyone who needs our service."
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Pipeline & CRM
Every opportunity visible in one place, with a value and a next action. Built in a free CRM account registered to the founder's own business and configured alongside them. Replaces memory, WhatsApp and spreadsheets.
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Proposal & quoting system
Quotes out faster, priced properly, in a consistent format. Replaces starting from scratch every time.
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Follow-up discipline
A defined cadence, applied to every open opportunity. This is where most small-supplier revenue is lost.
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Growth metrics
A small set of numbers the founder reviews weekly, so decisions stop being reactive.
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Weekly commercial rhythm
A standing review that turns all of the above into a habit that survives the programme.
10 weeks · Hybrid delivery, in-person and online
What you'll be able to report
"How will we measure impact?" is the fairest question a sponsor can ask, and most programmes answer it with attendance registers. Here is what GYB reports instead.
Baseline — week one
Every supplier's revenue, customer count and existing pipeline recorded before the programme starts. Without a starting line, nothing downstream means anything.
Leading indicators — tracked weekly through the programme
Qualified prospects in pipeline · Quotes and proposals submitted · Conversion rate · Total pipeline value · Follow-up completion rate
Lagging indicators — 3, 6 and 12 months after completion
Monthly revenue against baseline · New customers acquired · Revenue concentration — the share of revenue coming from their single largest customer
That last measure matters more than it looks. A supplier earning 80% of its revenue from one client isn't a business yet — it's a dependency. Watching that percentage fall is the clearest evidence available that a supplier is becoming genuinely sustainable. If you are that client, it's also the number that tells you your development spend is working.
Recognised Enterprise & Supplier Development contribution
GYB is structured so that programme spend is recognisable as an Enterprise & Supplier Development contribution under the B-BBEE Codes of Good Practice, where beneficiaries qualify as black-owned EMEs or QSEs. Final recognition is confirmed by your own verification agency. We provide the beneficiary documentation and programme records they'll ask for.
Your scorecard is the reason the budget exists. Growth is the reason it should be spent this way.
You don't have to commit to anything yet
There's a deliberate ladder here, and the first rung costs you almost nothing.
Step one — nominate five suppliers. They attend an Introductory Growth Session. Each one produces a Supplier Growth Plan, and you receive a copy of every plan. This is where you decide whether any of the rest is worth pursuing.
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01
Nominate five
An Introductory Growth Session and a Supplier Growth Plan for each supplier. You receive every plan.
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02
Pilot
A small cohort of your suppliers. Co-designed, fully measured. The lowest-risk way to see whether this closes the gap in your programme.
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03
Cohort
A full GYB cohort delivered for your beneficiary pool, with sponsor reporting throughout.
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04
Enterprise
GYB embedded across multiple cohorts, regions or supplier tiers, aligned to your transformation targets.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from the supplier development programme we already run?
It probably isn't a replacement. Most ESD programmes cover business fundamentals, compliance and readiness well. GYB covers the part that usually gets one workshop at the end: how the supplier actually finds and wins customers. Many sponsors run GYB after or alongside existing support rather than instead of it.
How will we measure impact?
Against a baseline taken in week one, using leading indicators during the programme and revenue, customer count and revenue concentration at 3, 6 and 12 months. Full detail in the measurement section above.
Who qualifies as a beneficiary?
Trading black-owned suppliers with existing revenue — this is a growth programme, not a start-up programme. Founders need to be actively selling something already, because the pipeline we build has to be built around a real offer. Beneficiary qualification for scorecard purposes follows the standard EME/QSE definitions.
Does this count towards our B-BBEE scorecard?
Yes, where beneficiaries qualify — see above. Your verification agency makes the final call and we supply the supporting documentation.
Is GYB a software platform?
No, and we're deliberate about that. GYB is a commercial method. During the programme it gets installed into a free, permanently available CRM account registered to the supplier's own business, so they leave with a working system rather than a set of notes. There is no licence to renew and no platform to keep paying for.
What happens when the programme ends?
Nothing switches off. The supplier keeps the account, the customer data and the pipeline they built, at no ongoing cost. This matters more than it sounds: a great deal of development spend disappears the moment the funding cycle closes. This does not.
How much time does it take from our suppliers?
Ten weeks, hybrid — a mix of in-person sessions and online delivery, designed around founders who still have a business to run.
Who delivers it?
Bizfarm, an incubator operating since 2010, SETA-accredited for New Venture Creation NQF4 and GrowthWheel certified, with a delivery team of PhDs, MBAs and CAs.
Test Grow Your Business® with five of your suppliers.
Don't take our word for any of this. Nominate five suppliers from your portfolio for the next Grow Your Business® Introductory Growth Session. Each one leaves with a Supplier Growth Plan — a clear read on where their revenue actually comes from, where it's stuck, and what would have to change for it to grow.
You receive a copy of every plan.
Why we do it this way: it's the fastest honest way for you to judge whether this works. And it gives you something most ESD programmes never produce — a straight look at the commercial reality inside five of your own suppliers.
What it costs you: five names.
Thank you. We'll confirm the session date and contact each nominated supplier directly. Atul will be in touch within one working day.