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Good practice Imported

Pathways to Profits — Marketing vs Finance Skills Training for Cape Town Entrepreneurs

South Africa · Cape Town · See the South Africa profile · See the Cape Town profile

Evidence: Randomised controlled trial Top 83% 52/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

A World Bank RCT split 852 Cape Town entrepreneurs into marketing-skills, finance-skills and control groups over a 10-week programme. Marketing training raised profits 61% and sales 64%; finance training raised profits 41% via cost discipline — two distinct growth pathways.

852 firms
Trial participants
61 %
Profit increase, marketing-trained firms (12-month) (12 months)
64 %
Sales increase, marketing-trained firms (12-month) (12 months)
57 %
Employment increase, marketing-trained firms
41 %
Profit increase, finance-trained firms (12-month) (12 months)

Details

Promoter
Business Bridge (with World Bank Group research team)
Period
2016–2018 (World Bank working paper to Management Science publication)
Keywords
SME growth, entrepreneurship training, business skills consulting

Context

Business Bridge, working with a World Bank research team, ran a randomised controlled trial with 852 small business owners in Cape Town, South Africa.

Activities

Participants were randomly assigned to a 10-week marketing-skills course (270 firms), a 10-week finance-skills course (266 firms), or a no-training control group (316 firms), with outcomes measured at 6 and 12 months.

Results

At the 12-month endline, marketing-trained firms increased profits by 61% and sales by 64% relative to control, expanding through higher stock investment (costs up 66%) and roughly one additional hire per firm (a 57% rise in employment). Finance-trained firms achieved a comparable 41% profit gain, but through cost discipline — their costs did not rise significantly above the control group.

Conclusions

The results come from a single Cape Town trial rather than a multi-site replication, and the marketing group's profit gains rode on a large increase in spending and inventory risk that could reverse if sales had not held up — 'growth' and 'efficiency' training create different risk profiles for small firms.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k)
Time to results
Short (< 1 year)
Staffing & skills
Business Bridge training delivery team, World Bank research team (Stephen Anderson, Rajesh Chandy, Bilal Zia)

Conditions for success

  • random assignment into distinct marketing-skills and finance-skills tracks isolating two separate growth channels
  • outcome measurement at both 6 and 12 months to check durability

Common failure modes

  • single Cape Town trial, not yet replicated at other sites
  • marketing-group profit gains rode on higher spending and inventory risk that could reverse if sales had not held

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes Philanthropic / foundation funding

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

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