More training was later facilitated by Africa Leather and Leather Products Institute, then Comesa Leather and Leather Products Institute on Clusters designing and implementation. Through the facilitation of Comesa, the Cluster received machinery valued at US$100 000, from the European Union in 2017.

The Cluster provides the following services to its membership: production space, machinery, joint action on procurement, production and marketing, networking and publicity.

The Cluster focuses on order-based products, in order to minimize its exposure to risks associated with borrowing and also challenges associated with marketing.

It concentrates on the production of school shoes, security, safari and safety boots, belts and sandals. The Cluster Core Competencies are drawn from the following fundamentals: The Cluster has a large base of experience drawn from its membership, which is composed of highly qualified and experienced personnel who have worked for many years in large and export-oriented companies. In addition, they have been running their own enterprises for more than five years each.

The Cluster has very low overheads and has developed strategic linkages with the suppliers of leather, which gives it a cost edge over non-clustered SMEs.

The Cluster aims to be a world class manufacturer of leather and allied products and facilitate incubation of its membership, joint procurement, production and marketing, usage of common production facilities and machinery.

Taking cognisance of the above, the Bulawayo Cluster proposes the following strategic objectives which will be supported by SMART sub-objectives which include:

— Improve the Cluster Management and Governance System;

— Promote joint action across the various nodes of the business supply, production and marketing chain among its membership;

— Improve the capacity to deliver technical and business services to the internal stakeholders (SMEs)

— Secure Government and External Stakeholders Commitment and support

— Facilitate R & D under the Regional Designer Studio Simulator project In addition to the above, the Cluster also has the following marketing objectives that will drive its business agenda: To capture 10 percent of the Matabeleland school shoes market by 2023; To facilitate joint procurement of 60 percent of its membership leather requirements by 2023; To facilitate the incubation and graduation of 75 percent of its current membership by 2022; To enter into strategic supply partnership with leading school shoes retail chains in Zimbabwe

The Cluster will offer products that include both incubation and clustering.

The product/service mix is the set of goods and services the cluster provides and has an inverse proportion with the cluster’s business risk i.e., the wider the product mix the less risk of failure for the cluster.

For example, the Cluster, may fail in joint production and marketing, but may succeed in joint procurement, which will enhance the performance of individual MSMEs who belong to the cluster.

The products that will be defined as cluster products are those that will be jointly produced by the MSMEs, with the supervision of the Cluster Steering Committee.

The following products are currently being produced separately by the various MSMEs: school shoes, mens formal shoes, casual shoes, security boots, ladies’ sandals, belts, wallets, handbags, brief cases and garments.