13th Annual International Management Conference Proceeding

Recommendations
To enhance the practice and role of training in enterprise performance, the study made the following
recommendations:
First, training programmes for the MSE sector should be participant-needs driven to enhance their transfer and
application of skills learnt. What this implies is that all training programmes focused on enhancing entrepreneurs’
capacity to improve their entrepreneurial ventures should be preceded by thorough needs assessment
Second, all training programmes should include both entrepreneurial and managerial components with provision to
practice the concepts learnt during and after the training so as to motivate the participants, enhance understanding and
focusing of concepts for ease application.
Third, training providers should establish links with credit providers to enable trainees access affordable credit to
implement the skills acquired for improved business performance. This could be achieved by training providers acting
as guarantors for those trained as the training enhances that trainees’ capacity to effectively utilize the funds.
Fourth, participants should be encouraged to form entrepreneurial networks and associations as they were found to
have had a significant role in the transfer of training in this context by way of situation and consequence cues. The
networks and associations formed the necessary contacts, support and synergies that enhanced application. This can be
supplemented by encouraging trainees to establish group credit programme.
Fifth, entrepreneurship training should consider cultural aspects of the trainees as springboards for training as culture
was found to have influenced application in both provinces. Whereas the Kikuyus are culturally known to be
entrepreneurial, the same is not the case with the Maasais. With this background information, the training emphasized
on the need to change from traditional livestock to modern dairy and crop farming which a number of participants
from the Maasai community embraced. The same was the case with participants from the Kikuyu community, as the
training incorporated secondary level processing and value addition due to their entrepreneurial orientation.
Sixth, appreciating the role of business planning as a roadmap to business success and noting that this was covered
during the training but none of the participants in the two provinces had prepared one, the study recommends the
business planning should be simplified and made more practical with an opportunity for the participants to develop
one during the training. Design of a simple fill-in business planning template through which trainees can practice with
during the training is one to achieve this.
Finally, every training programme should be subjected to rigorous monitoring and evaluations to ensure
implementation of concepts learnt and determine its effectives on target beneficiaries as justification for resources used.
However, to facilitate smooth and focused monitoring and evaluation, trainees should be made to prepare statements
or proposals of what they plan to do after the training, thus providing the yardsticks for measuring performance.
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