SME Development Services
Horrizon prides itself in being a valuable SMEs & MSMEs development partner; offering an array of enterprise-wide, custom and non-financial services that are critical to the entry, survival, productivity and competitiveness of feasible business opportunities that require entrepreneurial and entrepreneurial intervention, sustainability reporting and business divestiture. Horrizon has developed a DNA for working with SMEs across East Africa, providing cutting edge non-financial services right from market scanning to identify feasible business opportunities based on market needs requiring entrepreneurial and entrepreneurial intervention, idea conception (ideation, design thinking), prototyping, planning (go-to-market strategies, marketing plans and business plans), funding access including pitching, sustainability reporting and business divesture. Horrizon provides business linkage, capacity building, value chain development, business intelligence, sustainability reporting (accounting and book keeping, tax computation and filing, preparing financial statements, social/environmental reporting etc.) services to SMEs and MSMEs at various growth stages.
Horrizon supports SMEs in adopting their entrepreneurial approaches to local conditions essentially activating fertile ground for fostering new entrepreneurship and exploiting new opportunities. We help entrepreneurs identify industries with low entry barriers, gain early mover advantage and reinforce entry barriers or identify sectors with high barriers to entry, help them surmount the barriers and then reinforce barriers protecting profits and creating long-term value from customers, markets, and relationships.
There is significant speculative literature suggesting that the biggest challenge faced by SMEs is access to funding. However, our experience in SME advisory and business development shows that business failure is predominantly driven by a lack of market fit between the business idea and market needs. Consequently, we have built our trusted SME support services around market intelligence, product development, cash flow management, cost control, market development, business strategy, management/leadership development and divesture among other related services. We support SMEs in adopting their entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial approaches to market conditions thus cultivating fertile ground for fostering new entrepreneurship. Our solutions motivate simulation, stimulation and realisation of new opportunities through people, new organisational life forms as well as novel technology platforms . The objective is to create new ventures that stimulate innovation in new socio-economic spheres helping meet the critical societal needs. Horrizon has worked with a number of very successful SMEs in various sectors and leverage their success stories to help emerging SMEs write their own success stories, in their own ink and language. Horrizon has BI tools that help SMEs identify industries with low barriers to entry, gain early mover advantage and reinforce entry barriers to remain industry trailblazers. For entry into already fortified industries, Horrizon tools and capabilities enable entrants identify sectors with high barriers to entry, help them surmount the barriers and then reinforce barriers thus ensuring their position is protected. We support SMEs create long-term value from customers, markets, and relationships through a combination of BI, AI and targeted analytic tools that give clients a commanding view of global markets.
Innovation Ecosystem Development
Innovation drives society and transforms lives. Our way of living is now more innovation driven and dependent that ever before. The competitiveness of nations and enterprises is founded on innovation and innovation ecosystems development. Innovation ecosystems are built and developed around people, markets, policy, culture, finance and infrastructure support. Horrizon has gradually increased presence and involvement in innovation ecosystem development over the years, making a significant contribution to not just idea generation and commercialisation, but to enterprise development and sustainability. The Horrizon range of solutions from system catalysation, idea development, innovation policy/legislation development, financing, enterprise setup and development among others. Entrepreneurial and socially embedded innovation systems cannot thrive without direct legislation and policy incentivisation. Horrizon has invested significantly in local, national, regional and international innovation systems research that has informed an understanding of a variety of innovation systems with varying degrees of relational complexity, nature of inter-actor ties, knowledge involved and innovation ecosystem legislation.
This has contributed to creation/dissemination, appropriate legislation as well as equipping the firm with extensive information and knowledge on innovation ecosystems and ecosystem development. Horrizon has financed and facilitated innovator boot camps that helped many budding entrepreneurs/innovators generate and/or refine innovations. Horrizon innovation ecosystem catalysation efforts are aimed at creating the right innovation and commerce ecological conditions for start-ups to emerge and thrive. Smart development of complex dynamic non-hierarchical innovation systems is gaining importance in stimulating relations and interactions between innovation sub-ecologies to spur discovery and development. We help innovators and start-ups anticipate and overcome challenges including to fragility, inequity, conflict, corruption, weak institutions or political stagnation. Horrizon has coordinated the self-organization of actors in some sectors, leading to the rapid innovation development in FinAccess/digital payment systems, e-commerce platforms, smart devices among others in the region.