VirtualFrench
Programme Expansion
Programme Expansion has been developed for ambitious entrepreneurs and business owners across Africa who want to lead their teams and businesses to seize on opportunity, even in the face of challenges.
Build for Resilience & Growth
A 6-month learning journey to build business resilience and capitalize on opportunities to grow your business.
Grow Your Business is a practical business growth programme focused on equipping business leaders with the tools to immediately address challenges and seize on opportunities. Over this 6-month journey, you’ll build a more resilient business through improved business practices, a more engaged team, and clear growth goals.
Programme Objectives:
- Build a resilient business & team
Build confidence and resilience in core business leaders to overcome barriers, reach their goals and drive business growth - Improve systems and practices
Implement research-backed business practices to improve business practices that lead to growth - Growth to meet opportunity
Focus on setting clear growth goals, use AMI’s unique tools to track results, and learn how to adapt to meet market opportunities
KICK-OFF
July 14th 2022
FORMAT
Open Enrollment
PRICE
149 000 FCFA/ $250
Commitment & Enrolment Details
- A 6-month programme; requires 3-4 hours a week
- The main applicant and participant is the Business Owner, CEO, or Founder of the business
- Business owners can be accompanied by up to 2 employees (key staff or senior managers)
Business Profile
- Years In Business: Business in operation for more than 1 year
- Revenue: Generated between 18 000 000 XOF – 300 000 000 XOF in revenue in at least one of the last two financial years
- Employees: The business has a minimum of 2 full-time employees
- Internet Enabled: Smartphone/internet connection to access online tools, courses, and the online community
- Performance-Oriented: Willing to share key performance/financial data (so that you and we can learn about your growth progress).
Apply today
*Kindly note that this is a paid programme
Build & grow as you learn
Instead of talking at entrepreneurs about concepts and theories, AMI introduces practical business and management tools that can be applied to business practices on day one. Participants navigate their learning journey with our learning platform and apps, powerful facilitator-led learning experiences, and peer-to-peer support.
YOUR TOOLKIT FOR BUSINESS
More than traditional training - practical tools that you’ll use immediately
HUMAN-CENTRED LEARNING
No boring lectures. Expect engaging Learning Labs led by world-class facilitators and interactive peer group meetings
BITE-SIZED CONTENT ON THE GO
Get the content you need, when you need it, via web and mobile. Access 20+ online courses & over 125 business tools
AMI is more practical than other programmes because they go all the way to the level of showing you how to do it. And those tools are tools that you use forever.
Maggie Mugala, Dimples Restaurant
About the Learning Journey
Programme Expansion learning journey focuses on taking your business through 6 key phases of your journey over a 6 month period. Each stage is approximately 3-4 weeks long. You'll be supported by key AMI staff during this period including the Programme Facilitator and a dedicated AMI Programme & Learning Manager.
How does the programme work?
Through interactive virtual workshops, practical online courses, downloadable business tools and peer support, business owners and their teams will learn how to plan for and cope with a range of challenges like reduced revenue and cash flow, supply chain disruptions, and changing customer needs.
Led by our expert African facilitators, you’ll network and learn alongside other ambitious entrepreneurs from across the continent.
Move Your Business Toward Growth
When you complete your 6-month programme, you’ll be in a position to join AMI’s Growth Network that provides continued access to the AMI tools and platform, have the opportunity to link with finance opportunities, and network with other businesses across the continent that have completed AMI’s business growth programmes.
- Programme orientation
- 90 min virtual session to meet & network with your cohort and facilitator
Focus area: Risk Management, Cashflow, and Strategic Planning in a crisis.
- 2 hr virtual learning lab
- Get on the online learning platform – Download core business tools and enrol for recommended courses
- Pod networking – 90min fun small group discussion
- Measure your key financial metrics to track progress
Leadership Focus – build leadership skills, focusing on the head, the hands and the heart as key roles of effective and responsible leaders.
- 2 hr virtual learning lab
- Get on the online learning platform – Download core business tools and enrol for recommended courses
- Pod networking – 90min fun small group discussion
- Measure your key financial metrics to track progress
Customers, Markets and Revenue Focus – Understand your customers, find new innovative business models, research and assess new partnerships.
- 2 hr virtual learning lab
- Get on the online learning platform – Download core business tools and enrol for recommended courses
- Pod networking – 90min fun small group discussion
- Measure your key financial metrics to track progress
Focus on Money as a core practice assessing your core drivers of profit in the business, understanding underlying trends and making decisions that support growth and sustainability in the long-term.
- 2 hr virtual learning lab
- Get on the online learning platform – Download core business tools and enrol for recommended courses
- Pod networking – 90min fun small group discussion
- Measure your key financial metrics to track progress
Managing Talent, Team Building, and Succession Planning – Building teams, processes, and systems to ensure longevity in the organisation and to work towards long-term plans
- 2 hr virtual learning lab
- Get on the online learning platform – Download core business tools and enrol for recommended courses
- Pod networking – 90min fun small group discussion
- Measure your key financial metrics to track progress
Review and build on your strengths, develop a strategy for your next phase of growth
- 2 hr virtual learning lab
- Get on the online learning platform – Download core business tools and enrol for recommended courses
- Pod networking – 90min fun small group discussion
- Milestone – Celebration/Graduation
Phase 7: Growth Network
Those who graduate are invited to join the exclusive Growth network for a year. Here you will be connected to a vibrant network of other African entrepreneurs who completed AMI business growth programmes, link to finance opportunities and receive business coaching.
About the African Management Institute (AMI)
AMI enables ambitious businesses across Africa to thrive, through practical tools and training. We equip entrepreneurs with tools to build their business, help companies train their teams and run work readiness programmes for young people starting their careers. AMI’s programmes combine online and mobile tools with in-person workshops and on-the-job practice and support. During the COVID period AMI is delivering fully virtual programming across the continent.
We have worked with a range of businesses and organisations to support entrepreneurs and managers build and grow their businesses across Africa including Uber, Nestle, Radisson Blu, Mastercard Foundation, USAID, Shell Foundation and Equity Bank. AMI has directly trained over 30,000 people in over 35 countries across Africa.
AMI has 70+ staff with offices and presence in 7 countries; Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, and Uganda.
Our programmes have reached over 35,000 individuals in 39 countries across Africa.
Frequently Asked Questions
Programme Expansion is a 6-month programme and requires 3-4 hours a week commitment.
For you to qualify for Programme Expansion, you are required to share some basic financial data with AMI, such as business revenue, profit and staff headcount.
The reason for this is to:
- Help you develop the habit of constantly tracking and measuring your business performance.
- Enable AMI to better tailor our support for participants and measure the effectiveness of our programmes.
- Allow AMI to report anonymised impact data to our partners as a requirement of the subsidy. In short, without this data, we cannot continue to provide subsidised programmes to businesses like yours.
Your data will be anonymised before it is ever shared. It is our policy that no identifiable business data will ever be shared (see our data privacy policy)
Here are the steps you’ll be required to follow (businesses that fail to do so will be released from the programme):
- Track your business’ growth by recording financial figures every month and submitting this to AMI every month of the programme *
- Track your business’ annual growth by recording and sharing your business’ annual performance data with AMI at the beginning of the programme, and for 2 years after the programme.
- Engage with all the core requirements of the programme (i.e attending learning sessions, downloading and implementing practical tools and submitting key programme surveys).
This programme is designed for entrepreneurs and owners of small and medium-sized businesses from across Africa with more than 1 employee. The business must have been in operation for at least 1 year and generated more than $10,000 in revenue in at least one of the last two financial years.
It has not been designed for start-ups or smaller businesses whose gross revenues are below $10,000.
The programme combines two core research-backed approaches:
- Practises – Developed based on international research that explores how introducing certain ‘ways of working’ (organisational practices or ‘habits’) in a business is directly linked to organisational growth and prosperity. (Research by McKenzie & Woodruff on micro-enterprises and Bloom & Van Reenen on SMEs).
- Grit Building – The second unique approach to this training is (AMI -Appreciative Inquiry [AI]). This approach draws from research by David Cooper to help entrepreneurs build grit and resilience.
3-4 hours per week. This includes monthly webinars, review of metrics, and implementation of tools and practices (the more time you spend on the tools and practices, the more you get out of the programme)