The Stanbic Business Incubator enables women entrepreneurs to reach their full potential as business owners 

Hudah Tamale is no stranger to pivoting. When she began her business in 2015, she thought she could make money selling cakes. To attract new customers, she started offering herbal teas as a marketing strategy. However, she soon found herself becoming more excited over her tea products. After recognizing where her true passion lay, she shifted her business strategy and started focusing entirely on selling tea. 

When the COVID-19 lockdown began, Tamale found herself needing to pivot her business, Nash Royal Tea, again. With social distancing measures in place, she needed to rely more heavily on digital marketing strategies. Luckily, she had already learned many of the skills that she would need through the Stanbic Business Incubator. 

Today, she has a digital marketing strategy incorporated into her business plans and maintains an active online presence that has helped her through the pandemic. For women entrepreneurs struggling, she stresses the importance of digitizing. "If you don't have an online presence right now, you are almost nonexistent in business right now," she warned. 

Women entrepreneurs in Uganda and worldwide have had to face a rapidly changing business environment while still taking care of their children full-time once the schools closed. Even in regular times, women entrepreneurs face well-documented barriers that prevent them from reaching their full potential. Men are more likely to have the right information, training, and guidance to inform their dealings with financial institutions and plan effectively for their businesses in the long-term. 

Through business development services, training, networking events, and mentoring, the Stanbic Business Incubator offers an enabling ecosystem for entrepreneurs to protect and grow their businesses. The incubator also provides participants with opportunities to engage with subject matter experts and access markets and finance. By joining the Stanbic Business Incubator, women entrepreneurs can take advantage of opportunities that they may have not otherwise had. 

"Women entrepreneurs are a great resource to this country from our training we have come to realize that women play a very vital role in how enterprises are run and how enterprises are actually sustained over long period of time. Our commitment to the support of women especially the women entrepreneurs is one that we cannot devia\\te from. we have for a long time decided to have quota set for women entrepreneurs to be able to see them participate and enjoy the benefits of our training program. our commitment therefore is not a one of one off intervention. Many women have been part of this whole story especially after the realization that the lockdown or covid was going to impact on many businesses for a long time. we're certain that we can be very much in partnership with a lot of women entrepreneurs to scale them to fir their dreams."  said Tony Otoa, Executive Director, Stanbic Business Incubator Limited.