Can corporates afford to have a social conscience? How long can running a potentially profitable business coexist with the passion of a social mission? There is no denying the fact that businesses across the world have embedded corporate social responsibility (CSR) into their operations in varying degrees. But staffing a modest CSR department as a small offshoot of the PR or philanthropy division is one thing, while closely aligning social causes with one’s overarching corporate strategies is quite another.
For The Zubair Corporation, one of Oman’s most diversified business groups, CSR has never been a window-dressing, having long since integrated it into the DNA of its business, making it an effective tool for generating socioeconomic change. Supporting small and medium enterprises in the Sultanate has been one of the priority areas of the corporation’s CSR strategy. In 2013, the corporation launched one of its most strategic and dynamic CSR initiatives, Zubair Small Enterprises Centre (Zubair SEC), which has been designed, strategised and mandated to provide support to small enterprises owned by Omanis in the Sultanate.
Zubair SEC is arguably the first initiative in the Sultanate to promote social entrepreneurship, combining entrepreneurial mindset with social activism. “Social responsibility of the business is one of the abiding principles that we uphold through Zubair SEC,” says Lina Hussein, head of communications & social impact, Zubair SEC. “The centre is not there just to graduate more business people who care only about profit. What we are trying to do is to graduate a new generation of business people who have social ethos at the heart of their businesses. We are trying to create social impact through business and we work closely with many of our members to enrich the business models of their startups in ways that meet various social needs.”
For example, one of the members runs a rehabilitation centre for the differently abled. “She runs it as a business, but she is meeting a social need through her business rather than competing in a market saturated with other players and products; and that is what we call social entrepreneurship in its most simplified context,” explains Lina.  She adds that a business model, which is primarily driven by growth and scalability, is the most sustainable model to meet various social needs, compared to charities and non-profits which often fall far short of raising the required fund. “In a nutshell, if we place social needs at the heart of the business model, the intended social impact would scale up along with the scalability of the business,” she adds.
A comprehensive ecosystem
In order to meet these objectives and the wider success and benefit of its members, the centre has built a cohesive ecosystem which serves as an enriching platform for its members to grow their respective businesses. The main muscle of this ecosystem is the advisory services provided by the centre. The advisory services include one-to-one sessions provided directly to the members as well as specialised advisory services given by volunteering experts in various fields. Says Ali Shaker, business advisor at Zubair SEC, “Zubair SEC is privileged to have a lot of senior executives, entrepreneurs and other experts both from within and outside the Sultanate who are willing to work with us as volunteering specialised advisors, sharing their knowledge and expertise with our members. Many of them are generous enough to extend specialised workshops to the members.”
The ecosystem also includes networking, training and capacity building sessions. Although the centre does not have a fixed training agenda throughout the year, understanding the specific requirements and challenges of the members, its team of advisors regularly conduct workshops, debates, discussion sessions and training courses based on the most pressing needs faced by members. Lina elaborates, “An initiative we started last Ramadan, called ‘Tajribati’ (my experience), gives an opportunity to our members and other SME owners to network and interact with experts, specialised speakers, decision makers and representatives from public and private sectors. We bring them all together in a friendly environment to discuss certain topics of relevance for our members. We already had four such sessions and we are getting ready for the fifth session in November”.
Says Adel Al Hubaishi, senior advisor, Zubair SEC, “Apart from direct services for our members, we try to reach out to other SMEs across Oman as well as aspiring entrepreneurs and various university and college students in Muscat and other governorates. Our team goes there and runs workshops on entrepreneurship and social impact and hold awareness programmes from time to time as part of our obligation to raise national awareness and knowledge around these topics and gauge more young Omanis to explore the opportunities available to start their own businesses.”
Asked about the tangible impacts of such initiatives, he replied, “We have 250 members so far. In addition, we reached out to over 1,200 SMEs last year and through them our message is getting across to more people across the Sultanate. There is a steady increase in the number of people who benefit directly and indirectly from our initiatives. However entrepreneurship is still relatively young in Oman. So we are still at the awareness stage and therefore it is too early to measure the impact easily. There are over 37,000 small or medium enterprises registered with the Public Authority for the Development of Small and Medium Enterprises (Riyada), while there are over 120,000 SMEs registered with the Ministry of Commerce. So we don’t claim that we can handle all and sundry, as one player cannot reach out to them all. That’s why we work in collaboration with other players and public and private organisations working for SMEs development in Oman.”
Ali corroborates adding, “Since the inception of Zubair SEC, we have made it clear that we are here to collaborate with both the public and private sectors. We were one of the first SME-support centres to start signing MoUs with other entities. We have now 12 partners from public and private organisations with whom we have closely worked in various manners to raise awareness and extend special support to individual members.”
Zubair SEC Direct Support Programme (DSP)
Another major initiative by the centre is its Direct Support Programme (DSP), a flagship programme for its most outstanding members. “We reckoned that we need to come up with a model that could trigger positive competiveness among our members. Hence, since establishment we launched Zubair SEC’s Direct Support Programme which rewards 10 members every year, who prove throughout their work with the centre their commitment towards success and dedication in applying the consultancy and advice provided to them by our team. These members’ projects and businesses should also reflect proper strategic planning and accurate feasibility studies that reflect their owners’ eagerness to apply best business administration measures with the assistance of Zubair SEC. Accordingly, selected members for the Direct Support Programme receive additional direct advisory and consultancy services as well as a financial grant to support their businesses,” says Lina.
The programme is open to all members of the centre as well as non-members provided they apply for the membership and complete the requisite procedures on time. Explaining the membership criteria, Adel says, “The membership criteria is to be passionate about your project and demonstrate the willingness to listen, to share the problems with the centre and to adapt to the changes as and when required. In addition, the whole concept of the business and the business model need to be feasible, financially viable and socially impactful. Creativity and innovation would be a well-earned plus.”
The third round of the programme have been launched in early October 2015 for interested SMEs to apply, and winners will be announced in January 2016. Once the results are announced, meetings will be set up for each winner and they will sit with business advisors to decide on the plan for the coming two years. The DSP has key performance indicators to measure the performance of the members; and the centre will be monitoring continuously. Adel informs that in addition to financial grant, the winners of DSP will be entitled to get exclusive advisory services on marketing, branding and other areas of business development.
Ali adds that the members will have at their disposal the whole gamut of experiences, expertise and advisory services available across the length and breadth of Zubair SEC and its volunteering specialised advisors, in addition to other external resources that the centre makes available. She cites the example of a female entrepreneur from Al Dakhiliya region, who owns and runs a kindergarten school in Al Hamra. She was recently taken to Jordan, a country known for its expertise in running schools, to visit some of its pioneering schools and came back gaining a lot of insights and innovative ideas about school administration, management, and educational best practices. Adel complements it talking about the experience of another entrepreneur who was sent to China by the centre to get a better exposure to expand and develop his food packaging business.
Lina adds, “In its third round now, the Direct Support Programme today cascades a complete set of corporate values derived from those of The Zubair Corporation in general and Zubair SEC in particular. We have been harvesting encouraging results in the past two and a half years which makes us more obliged and committed to keep developing and adding to the programmes offerings. Although, social impact was just part of the assessment criteria in the first two rounds as a first step, we decided for the third round to dedicate one of the ten seats for a social enterprise in an attempt to further promote the concept in the country and equip potential candidates on needed knowledge and tools.”
There is also an opportunity for one of the DSP winners to be adopted by Oasis Logistics of the Zubair group. The winner will be helped to set up his or her retail outlet shop from scratch. Adel adds, “Oasis will bear all logistical costs including branding, shop preparation, 50 per cent of rental, and providing products, as well as extending needed training for the member, while Zubair SEC will be closely extending the needed guidance and business advisory.”
According to Zubair SEC team, one of the biggest challenges facing SMEs in Oman is related to scalability. They explain that many people get stuck in a time warp at the very first level of their businesses, hardly daring to step outside their comfort zone for various challenges. SMEs constitute almost 90 per cent of the registered companies in Oman; but they still contribute only 10 to 15 per cent of the GDP. Lina concludes, “Given that around 75 per cent of SME owners are under the age of 30, major efforts need to be in place to nourish scalability and assist SMEs to think of growth in a more sustainable and strategised manner. A paradigm shift needs to take place so that we don’t suffice with small businesses generating acceptable income; rather, we need SMEs who think they can clearly see prospect, realise potential, and set their minds to the right quality of work needed to scale up.”