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This month July was named entrepreneur of the month by Business Partners, an organisation that invests in entrepreneurs. This organisation helped her to get financing when the banks would not help her.
July, who started working as a “kitchen assistant” at a Juicy Lucy outlet 27 years ago, got the opportunity to buy the Kenilworth shop from her previous employers in 2001. She had been working there for 10 years and even managed the shop.
She says Colleen and Jeremy Chennells, who wanted her to buy the shop, were sent to her by God. “When they came into my life the lights turned green for me,” she says. By that time she already had shares in the business. However, her greatest problem was to get financing to buy the business.
She believes that she is a shining example of what people from previously disadvantaged communities can achieve if they want to. When she passed matric so many years ago, she could get no other work. She says people must realise that it depends solely on yourself what you achieve in life.
She started working for the first franchise holder of a Juicy Lucy shop in Cape Town as a 22-year-old mother. Within a few years she had progressed from scrubbing floors and washing dishes to assistant manager and finally she was promoted to manager.
It was also her job to open new Juicy Lucy shops and to manage them for a month until their business was in order. One of her major achievements was when, as manager, she won R5 000 in 1985 for the shop that showed the greatest growth, as well as for the cleanest shop with the best service.
Some of her clients are regular visitors who are on first name terms with her. She manages her shop herself and still wears the plum-coloured, checked Juicy Lucy manager’s uniform. She wears a tag with “Jessica July: Manager” on it. July is convinced that her success can be ascribed to the fact that she is personally involved in the day-to-day running of the shop as manager. “I am part of the staff,” she says. This is also one of the hints she gives to shopkeepers – “Don’t sit at home. Rather manage the place yourself.”
According to her the shop has shown a 22% growth in turnover during the past two years. She employs six permanent workers and two casual workers.
Now July is interested in two more shops. She has been with Juicy Lucy for almost as long as this chain of shops, which was introduced as a healthier alternative to fast food restaurants, has been in existence.
She says she would never have thought that she would own a Juicy Lucy.
(Source: Die Burger, 3 July 2003 - translated)
QUESTIONS:
1. Name the advantages that a CC offers an entrepreneur.
2. Explain why it might be advantageous to take out a franchise if one wants to start a business. Mention one possible disadvantage.
| Learning Outcomes |
| (LOs) |
| LO 4 |
| Entrepreneurial Knowledge and Skills The learner will be capable of demonstrating entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and attitudes. |
| Assessment Standards(ASs) |
| We know this when the learner: |
| 4.1 identifies financial institutions and organisations promoting entrepreneurship; |
| 4.2 discusses different ideas for starting a business (including ideas to attract tourists, franchising); |
| 4.3 differentiates between the forms of ownership in both the informal and the formal sectors (sole ownership, close corporation); |
| 4.4 evaluates the financial viability of a business (e.g. initial costs, production costs, sales and profit); and |
| 4.5 engages in a business activity that involves purchasing, production and marketing (should involve financing of business with own or borrowed capital – e.g. bank overdraft). |
ACTIVITY 1
Spend sufficient time on this activity. Encourage the learners to work thoroughly right from the very first exercise. They must really go out and get information about the business that they have chosen, and they shouldn’t simply think it all up on their own.
In the section on creative thought the learners must be given enough time to consider examples thoroughly.
Their description of their own business idea must be checked carefully and these ideas must be discussed with them so that they can serve as basis for the work in Activity 3.
ACTIVITY 2
This activity is the core of the module, but can only be done successfully if Activity 2 was done properly.
Testing the viability of the business idea allows the learner to deal with important concepts in the field of financial business management and you must make sure that they fully understand the concepts. The difference between product costs and operational costs and the meaning of gross profit must be fully understood. If the product cost is too high in relation to the selling price, the gross profit will be too low for
the entrepreneur to be able to afford essential operational necessities such as salaries and marketing.
The examples in the module can be used to check whether the learners’ calculations are correct.
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