“Within two years, SMEs Compete has managed to assist over 500 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) throughout the country,” proudly says founder and co-director Danny Meyer on the occasion of the firm’s second anniversary. The entrepreneur, who stepped back from active business in 2001 to focus on enterprise and entrepreneurial development, is convinced that despite being well endowed with resources above and below the ground, southern Africa will not develop fully unless entrepreneurship is permitted to thrive.

Founder and co-director of SMEs Compete, Claudine Mouton.

SMEs Compete is the branding applied to local consulting firm that provides assistance and support for income growth and job creation in the Namibian small and medium enterprise (SME) sector. The primary objective of the firm is to improve entrepreneurial, management, marketing and information technology skills of SMEs in Namibia.
The firm was borne of a USAID-funded programme, which closed in February 2006. With the support of USAID/Namibia and encouragement of the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI), Danny Meyer, Claudine Mouton and a third partner, Collin Gaochab, founded SMEs Compete.
From humble beginnings and with the support of MTI, USAID, the German Development Service, Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst (DED), First National Bank (FNB), Skorpion Zinc, Namibia Asset Management (NAM) and to a lesser extent by a growing number of corporate firms, scores of SMEs have and continue to benefit from business skills capacity building interventions and mentorship.
Over the course of the past business year, SMEs Compete has expanded even further, with the main intention of creating employment and wealth whilst developing the local economy and increasing the standard of living for Namibia as a whole. To this end the firm has established a presence in Ongwediva and in Walvis Bay and relocated to larger premises in the capital city.
Founder and co-director of SMEs Compete, Claudine Mouton says that SMEs Compete could not have demonstrated that there is indeed life after donor funding for a developmental project without the assistance of many friends and supporters. In an interview at the firm’s head office in Windhoek, Mouton credited the German Development Service, USAID, MTI, corporate firms, her fellow director Meyer and an ever-growing cadre of personnel for helping transform a donor project to a Namibian business entity.
Asked about future growth plans Mouton says, “Development of a venture capital facet of service provision will be the focus of our attention over the coming year.”
SMEs Compete sees this as a way to help novice entrepreneurs grow business.