Capacity Building ~ The Essence of Growth

The long-awaited Credit Management training started with Trainers of the day giving us BUSINESS QUOTES from Alvin Toffler. “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

“If you don't have a strategy, you're part of someone else's strategy."

Anatole France says that "education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know, it’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t."

For the Village HopeCore Micro Enterprise staff, this was the gauging point in terms of credit management. The Micro Enterprise team attended a one-day training on credit management in collaboration with Danley’s Research and Consultancy firm. Credit Management is defined as the process to ensure that customers will pay for the products delivered or the services rendered.

Information is a source of learning. But unless it is organized, processed, and available to the right people in a format for decision-making, it is a burden, not a benefit. — C. William Pollard, Chairman, Fairwyn Investment Company.

The training began on a high note as the trainers gave a thorough introduction of where credit management all began because, as Marcus Garvey says, a people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without its roots.  A deep brainstorming session opened up our thinking and understanding of what products we offer as an organization i.e. Hope, impact, relationships, and change. With this understanding, the team was able to change its overall marketing strategy to incorporate more emotions. 

The team was then taken through a step-by-step process in regard to credit management: new customer introduction, loan appraisal, loan approval, loan disbursement, and monitoring. The constant brainstorming and interactive sessions helped the team understand their place in the credit management world and come up with pointers on how we could better improve and refine our processes so as to reach our clientele and ensure they get the maximum benefits. Through the training, we were able to understand the basic tenants of the credit appraisal toolkit i.e. 3Ms: market, management, and money, and 5Cs: character, collateral, capacity, conditions, and cash flow. The training helped us find a healthy balance between the microfinance world standards and the economic empowerment aspect we strive to excel in. 

The training was concluded by having an interactive session on the very crucial place of the customer in everything we do and ways in which we can better foster this very important relationship such as developing mechanisms of getting feedback from our clients and better incorporating empathetic listening in all our dealings. 

Julie Dirksen a learning strategy and design consultant says that learning experiences are like journeys; The journey starts when the learning is now and ends when the learner is successful. The end of the journey isn’t knowing more, it is doing more. For the Micro Enterprise team, it’s definitely a phase of doing so much more in the second half of the year. 

Martha Stewart says that without an open mind, you can never be a great success. This credit management training was definitely an eye-opener for the team and the way forward pointers decided on will go a great deal in revamping this economic empowerment program. 

The Micro Enterprise Team was awarded certificates at the end of the training.