Smit Industries has been actively and directly involved in startups since 1997 when it started up a television production company that successfully bid for and launched the replacement show to the long-running morning breakfast program, Good Morning South Africa. The Breakfast Club became wildly successful and on seeing the revenue it was losing to an outside company, the SABC reclaimed the slot. Lessons like that have informed Smit Industry and provide a bedrock of experience when it helps clients with business development services.
Business development requires a mix of long-term imagination, practicality, patience to dig through the research, and an ability to see opportunity by combining business information in new ways for successful outcomes. Smit Industries has that mix and can deliver.
The principal at Smit Industries has started up or been a senior executive in several small companies or development initiatives in digital media, life sciences, renewable fuels, and industrial biotechnology and bioproducts for more than a decade. He has led teams in Africa, Europe, India and the United States in technology development. Smit Industries is keenly aware of the difficulties of launching technology initiatives and the critical need for effective partnering to achieve strategic and tactical goals.
Along with international experience Smit Industries has first-hand knowledge of the difficulties inherent in starting up a company abroad where cultural barriers and bias must be overcome, along with a lack of an in-place professional network. Smit Industries can assist companies wanting to start up in the United States with strategic marketing and positioning, along with other assistance. Smit Industries has helped lead strategic positioning efforts in knowledge economy, advanced manufacturing and regulated sectors as well as in workforce and economic development initiatives in biomanufacturing and renewable fuels.