Wednesday, September 23, 2009

IFC Request for Expressions of Interest (Eol): Pre-Qualification for SME Toolkit Partner

Country: Kenya
Project: IFC SME TOOLKIT
Financing: IDA/IFC
Abstract: SME Toolkit Partner
Sector: SME Development
EOI Number: SSC/TOOLKIT-09
Deadline: October 2, 2009

IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group, through its SME Solutions Center (SSC), supports sustainable development of SMEs in Kenya.

The SSC's range of products and services are clustered under four major pillars: Access to Finance, Access to Market Information, Advisory Services and support for an Enabling Business Environment.

The SME Toolkit, a product developed by IFC in 2002 leverages the Internet to avail SMEs in emerging markets with computer based training, best of breed online tools, and information to promote sustainable business management practices.

IFC's SME Toolkit currently operates 32 websites in 16 languages, and attracts more than 4 million visits annually. Expansion in emerging markets is on-going. Globally, IFC identifies and partners with organizations to position the SME Toolkit as the premier online resource for small and medium enterprises.

We achieve this by centrally sourcing high-quality, universally relevant content and supporting local partner-organizations to develop country-specific content and leverage the toolkit's portal management features to keep the site fresh and users engaged.

In all cases, the partner-organization has a strong association with and business focus on SME's.

IFC's SSC has undertaken localization of the content in the Kenyan version of the toolkit and is now seeking Expressions of Interest from suitably qualified organizations to partner with in managing the IFC SME Toolkit in Kenya.

The role of prospective partners includes:
  • Development and execution of a Content Management and Distribution Plan.
  • Regular updating of the local content in line with the content management plan.
  • Website management.
  • Delivery of Toolkit-based training workshops. Continuous marketing of the SME Toolkit site.
  • Participating in global SME Toolkit partner conferences.
Prospective partners will:
  • Be reputable organizations with the ability to reach a clearly defined local SME market.
  • Demonstrate commitment to proactively manage the local project by committing at least one full-time staff resource to manage it while dedicating resources for content management, marketing, and training on an on-going basis.
  • Demonstrate how their management of the site will substantially contribute to SME capacity building in the country.
  • Demonstrate how the SME Toolkit is in alignment with and will enhance the organizations own SME focussed activities.
  • Be willing and able to pay an implementation fee to cover, among other things, costs of training staff on the content management system, and offer training workshops. (The fee amount varies depending on the level of support required).
The process of implementation with a partner averages 1-3 months.

Interested and eligible entities are urged to view the SME Toolkit websites and specifically the Kenyan site at (http://kenya.smetoolkit.org) and submit only via email Expressions of Interest on or before October 2, 2009 addressed to sbutoyi @ ifc.org and detailing how the criteria listed above will be met.


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