Mentoring Services

What is mentoring?

Mentoring is a nurturing process that fosters growth and development; get one further than she/he would have gotten alone.This involves coaching, and counseling from a mentor.It is a two way process where a mentor imparts his/her knowledge and the mentee shares his/her experience for them to reach a common goal of the success of the business.

What is a mentor?

A mentor is a trusted advisor with skill and experience who helps someone else learn something that he/she would have learned less well or would have not learned at all if left alone. A mentor is an advisor and the mentee's confidante.

Who qualifies for CEDA mentoring?

Any CEDA beneficiary can be mentored where there is a need. Mentoring needs are identified by CEDA officers during appraisal and project monitoring. CEDA beneficiaries can also request to be mentored if they have a specific area that they need assistance on. Mentoring is beneficial where a client buys into the exercise. The commitment of the client is the driving force in the success of mentoring assignments. There are five stages at which a CEDA project can be mentored namely

• Pre Approval mentoring
  CEDA assigns mentors to those projects which are being appraised. In a case where a CEDA officer is not conversant with the technical aspects of the business a mentor is engaged to assist with the appraisal. A mentor can also be engaged where it is evident that the presented application has got a potential to succeed but it was not well planned. In this case a mentor can assist in developing the business plan further.
  
  
• Implementation mentoring
  Once a project has been approved CEDA appoints a mentor to guide its implementation until it becomes operational. At this stage the mentor has to assist the client with the implementation schedule and ensure that it is followed. This is a very crucial stage at which a project has to be mentored because once everything is set properly the chances of going wrong in the business are very low.
  
  
• Turnaround mentoring
  If a project has got a problem of any nature such as the market, cash flow problems etc, a mentor can be assigned to assist with the turn around of the project. A mentor has to come up with a turn around strategy and ensure that the client implements the strategy. It is not the duty of the mentor to implement the recommended turn around strategy. However, in cases where it is clear that mentoring cannot turn around the project CEDA officers have to make a decision on the way forward of the business without engaging a mentor.
  
  
• Need based mentoring
  When a project has got a specific need or requires a specific assistance which CEDA officers cannot handle, a mentor is assigned to assist the project in this regard eg: book keeping.
  
  
• Additional funding
  In the case where a client requests additional funding for the project for whatever reasons, a mentor can be attached to help with the validation or for input. Additional funding validation involves assigning a mentor to a project to assess whether the required additional funding is necessary and sufficient to assist the business. A client may know that they need additional funding but not sure of the amount and thus a mentor may be called to assess the business needs and recommend the amount.

CEDA Training and Mentoring

Our mentoring process life cycle is defined by the following customer relationship stages;

• Initiation
• Cultivation
• Maturity
• Separation
• Re-definition

In line with the above stages, we specifically at CEDA offer mentoring interventions which are prompted by the following:

• Project Implementation stage
• Needs based mentoring & monitoring
• Business turn-around strategies

A mentor is a person whose role is to provide counseling and acts as a model for an entrepreneur. Mentoring in entrepreneurial development process refers to engaging a specialist with knowledge in a specific industry that can assist the promoter / Entrepreneur with transfer of specific expertise in a specific area (e.g. Marketing, Accounting, Process Management etc)

Qualities of our accredited Entrepreneurial mentors

Our mentors possess the following skills that can assist different businesses through different stages:

• Good listening and communication skill
• Objective and Patient
• Leadership and nurturing spirit
• Humility and sense of responsibility

Factors which affect success or failure of mentors

• Geographic proximity
• Frequency and type of information shared with the Entrepreneur
• Initiation of relationship by CEDA & the promoter
• Structure of interaction
• Ability to establish mentor-mentee friendship

Some useful tools for mentoring

The following tools are some of those which have proven to be very effective in our mentoring interventions:

• Personal judgment; observations: what do you see, what is the condition of assets etc
• Process audit; How business is carried out at the project, work delegation arrangement
• Internal control system evaluation; are there proper financial records: receipt books, ledgers
• Full audit; more than a test of the financial controls.

Training

CEDA has established strategic pool of trainers which are engaged from time to time to provide some needs based courses for entrepreneurs. Training can be offered through successful CEDA funded projects as field attachments. Training needs interventions can be initiated by either the client or CEDA.