Fifty percent of Ugandan business start-ups fail after three years

June 13, 2019 in Business, Finance by Editor

Flanked by Prof. Balunywa, Kakeeto (right) said the Orient Academy will equip as many businessmen and women as possible to survive.

June 13—One in every two businesses started in Uganda fails within first three years according to findings made by the Makerere Business School (MUBS).

In 2015, Uganda topped the rankings for having the most entrepreneurial people in the world, but the majority of these enterprises do not survive the first five years.

“This is why we started the Orient Business Academy so that we equip as many businessmen and women as possible, to enable them grow and maintain their businesses and improve the economy,” Julius Kakeeto, the Orient Bank Uganda managing director said early this week.

He was speaking at the 3rd edition of the Orient Business Academy aimed at providing training and other entrepreneurship skill for small and medium business owners.

MUBS is helping with resources personnel. The academy session, which will last for 10 weeks, will focus on business owners who have been in operation for one to three years and have less that UGX 120 million (almost $32,000) as annual turnover. Topics to be tackled include insights in the entrepreneurial mindset, bookkeeping, competitive market analysis, marketing, human resource management, operations planning and financial planning.

MUBS Principal, Prof Waswa Bulunywa said at the launch, “Operating a successful business takes a lot of effort and continued learning given the changing trends of business operations locally and globally. This training will go a long way in equipping business owners with the right skills and information. I urge them to participate.”

About 30 business owners will be selected from all the several hundred applicants and the emerging top five participants will also be given UGX 20 million each.