South Australia will spend almost $2.25 million over four years to extend a business support program for women, providing mentoring, advice and training to another 1,600 aspiring and existing business owners across the state.
The Women in Business Foundations Program will provide 1,200 women who already run businesses with access to 7,200 hours of individual mentoring, while another 400 women considering starting a business will be offered Launch Your Own Business workshops.
Delivered by Adelaide Business Hub, the program covers business planning, finance, marketing, operations, workforce development and growth, with support available to women in metropolitan Adelaide and regional and rural South Australia.
The government said more than 2,000 women had participated in the first two rounds of the program.
Small Business Minister Nadia Clancy said the early stages of establishing a business could be particularly difficult.
“South Australian women have the ideas, expertise and determination to build successful businesses, but the early stages can be some of the hardest to navigate,” Ms Clancy said. “The Women in Business Foundations Program gives women practical support at that critical point, helping them test their ideas, build capability and confidence, and make sound decisions before small challenges become bigger ones.”
She said the government was investing “almost $2.25 million to continue the program for another four years, supporting a further 1,600 women across South Australia with tailored mentoring, advice and training”.
The program also seeks to address some of the pressures faced by women combining business ownership with caring responsibilities. Australian Bureau of Statistics research has previously found family responsibilities are common among female business owners. Census analysis published by the ABS found about a third of female business owner-managers were in couple families with children under 15, with a further group raising young children in one-parent families.
Adelaide Business Hub chair Dr Kristine Peters said the four-year funding would allow mentoring to be offered consistently.
“As South Australia’s premier deliverer of mentoring services for small business, the funding allows us to leverage our existing programs to make mentoring consistently available to women over the next four years,” Dr Peters said.
She said the organisation’s network of more than 40 mentors provided advice according to the circumstances of individual businesses.
“Our network of more than 40 mentors provides tailored guidance aligned with each participant’s goals, challenges, and stage of business. We’re helping women right across South Australia, including regional businesses – our mentors understand what it means to live and work in rural communities, and how that is different from operating in a city environment.”
The funding was announced as South Australia holds Small Business Week, which runs until Friday, August 21, with almost 40 events scheduled across metropolitan and regional areas.
The government says the state has more than 168,000 businesses. The week includes a Meet the Buyer event on Wednesday connecting businesses with government and industry buyers, as well as sessions covering cyber security, energy efficiency, diversification, disaster recovery and wellbeing.
Ms Clancy said the program was intended to give businesses access to practical information and connections as economic conditions changed.
“Small Business Week brings together access to information, expert insights and strong connections, whether businesses are exploring new technology, preparing for change or looking for new opportunities,” she said.
“South Australia is a strong place to do business, and we want to keep building on that by giving businesses the right environment and practical support that helps them build for the future.”
Businesses are facing continued cost pressures nationally. The latest ABS Business Conditions and Sentiments survey found 46 per cent of businesses reported higher operating expenses in the four weeks to June, with fuel prices and business overheads the most commonly reported reasons for those increases.
Juggle House Experiences founder Kelly Kuhn said her business had faced two major disruptions within its early years.
“In the infancy of our business, we were faced with being completely closed for 14 weeks during COVID, and when the 1-in-100-year Murray River flood event happened our business almost went under with it,” Ms Kuhn said.
“What I learned is that resilience isn’t a mindset, it’s a set of habits. We had to keep overheads flexible, becoming nimble and fearless in diversifying our offering.”
She said those experiences had changed the way the business operated.
“Adapting hasn’t been a one-off response to a crisis. It’s become how I run the business day to day.”
Ms Kuhn said bringing business owners together could also help them learn from others who had dealt with similar problems.
“Events like Small Business Week matter, because being in a room with people who’ve faced the same walls you have, can open doors you didn’t know existed. Resilience grows a lot faster when you’re not building it in isolation.”
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