₦airaland Forum

Trading is one of the most popular forms of business in Nigeria. There’s hardly a street without a shop or store but there’s something about the business you may not have noticed, its failure rate is alarming. This is evident in the number of shops that open and all seems promising but within an average span of one to five years they close shop.

For 10 years using software to help shop owners and interacting with them, I have put down a few thoughts for your consumption. My hope is that you will be armed with better information to avoid pitfalls others have experienced and of cause to share best practices that have kept others successful.
First of all, there are many reasons why your shop may fail but my emphasis here is on poor or lack of control. This is a subject I strongly believe if properly handled, may help fix other pain points in shop management.
CONTROL
Without a system of control, you can’t check to make sure everything is in place. I even dare say that if you are a shop owner and you lose sleep over how things are going in your shop when you are not around, then there is no system of control. What have you done to put everyone in check to ensure that everyone falls in line? How are purchases made? Who does the purchases? Who checks profit? takes money to the bank? etc.
A SYSTEM
There should be ground rules for all important activities in your shop down to whom and how the shop doors are closed or opened. There should also be incentives and punishment for compliance and defiance respectively.
A system is a set of rules and records that guides or govern all activities and actors in your organisation. Do you have one? Congrats! I guess you already but is it complied with? I bet it isn’t.
FRAUD
No control, poor control, no system or poorly planned system equals fraud. May I say at this point that what kills most stores/shops in Nigeria is fraud?
My definition of fraud will give you a sense of what I’m talking about. Any activity carried out by your team that is contrary to your system, vision or anything you care about is fraud. Without a system, there is no control and without control, your guess is as good as mine - fraud, fraud, fraud. I don’t care how much you have, if this is allowed to thrive for 12months, you are out of business.
IMPORTANT RULES IN SYSTEM BUILDING
1. Involve more than one person/department in very critical activities. For instance, your team member recording purchases should never be the same person recording sales. The person also recording revenue and expenses should not be taking your money to the bank.
2. All sales and purchases must be recorded. I don’t care how many customers you attend to at a given to. If it means them queuing up enforce it.
3. An independent auditor must be brought in to check your books from time to time.
4. If you can afford it, all customers must be issued a receipt upon every purchase.
5. Procurement should only be made upon receiving quotes from at least 3 vendors and don’t use the same vendors always.
6. If you can afford it afford it, run an online software from anywhere you can access from anywhere.
RECORDS
Your reports are very important. Some important reports you will need includes: Sales records, Sales summary, Purchases, Purchase summary, Stock reports, Customers, Vendors, Credits, Debits, Revenue summary, Expenditure summary ,Income statement etc.
Manual VS Digital
You don’t need a computer or software to manage your shop. Infarct, systems as described above are actually records and rules carried out by your team. That said, your system can be manual or paper based. However, technology may help you do it more effectively and efficiently.
As a software company, Sysmax Technology ICT from basic has inventory systems to complex RFID chip based. Inventory systems have helped shop owners over the years.
At Sysmax Technologies Limited, we have used Prestige Professional and Swift office Resources to help business owners detect and eliminate fraud, helping them perform task that hitherto used to be boring more fun, providing records required for decision at a click of a button and allaying fears of shop owners especially when out of town.
DISCIPLINE
But every system requires discipline and persistence. There’s hardly a location we deploy technology without some resistance. One, because change is resisted and two because it takes food away from the tables of perpetrators of fraud.
Management must not relent in also communicating the importance of compliance and more importantly how fraud affects everybody. Firmness must be seen by management as your team always know the “tone at the top”.

TEAM
Carry your team along. Provide the training required and contact a customer friendly customer ICT Company for help. The right team also matters. I have observed that most staff of shops are secondary school leavers; they also stay for a short time as they just need a job to pass time before moving to the university. Training may be difficult but if you can’t afford people more stable, you may need to spend more time re-orientating them about basic work rules, ethics, your vision, etc.
CONCLUSION
As I earlier mentioned, this piece may not cover all aspects of running a store/shop successfully but I’m sure with more research you will get more information about this subject matter.

Lastly, as a business owner, I also agree that roles should be delegated but business owners must take the front sit – use the software personally, take responsibility and ask the right questions. Ensure that your team at every moment comply with your system 100%, after all if you don’t why should they?

Charles Ona
c.ona@sysmaxng.com
07034296916

Can you do without paper in your office?
Getting rid of paper in your office is what you probably believe you can do when you are ready. But will you ever be ready? How long have you procrastinated about it? And just like New Year resolutions, you simply don’t and time keeps flying. If you have not started thinking in that direction, I hope I’m able to convince you.

This short piece is targeted at small startups especially lean startups providing goods and services to their immediate community. My objective is to provide information that will help them carryout their daily activities smarter and faster - powering their businesses with ICT. Sysmax Technologies started out with paper based record keeping but today, we hardly use paper for anything.

Smarter and Faster
I don’t need to bother you with the drawbacks of paper based system of record keeping. You already know. But for me, it’s about two words smarter and faster. It sucks opening file after file just to look for a paragraph of information in shelf 4, box 19, file 9, page 31, paragraph 11, and line 2. I’d rather put on my device and type a word(s) in paragraph 11, line 2. Yes, that save my time and I think that’s smarter.

Did you know?
You’ve probably heard this before, information in an entire office building can be kept on top of a table in a PC. It’s even better now, it can be held in your palm or may be your wrist as long as it’s in digital format. You can also carry it wherever you go – with mobile devices all over the place and fast internet-powered devices gradually reaching those in rural communities.

Decision-making
Who doesn’t want to have everything at one’s disposal for quality decision-making? Again, I don’t need to tell you access to information facilitates that, as the last dumbest decision you took, if you recall, I bet you do, was as a result of not having all the facts and in the right volume and quality.

Getting Started
1. Identify all processes and activities in your office and all corresponding records
2. Identify roles by all team members both as individuals and groups and get them involved
3. Consult an expert to guide you on specific tools or software solutions suitable for your needs
4. Start gradually.

Your team
Carry your team along clearly articulating the objective and state them in terms of how it will benefit them and the organization. A good objective may be:
1. To reduce their work load (fast)
2. To make them work more effectively and efficiently (smart)
If you have a large team, I recommend you set up a committee of 3 charged with the responsibility of studying the company’s paper record usage and making recommendations for management consideration. The study should cover cost incurred and time spent on the old (paper-based) and how the new system eliminate those challenges.

Transition
“Out with the old, in with the new” holds true but may not serve your exact need here. You may wish to plan the transition in phases to enable acceptance/tolerance as the case may be. Some people recommend you start with your most critical records, others prefer trivial, yet others would want you to start from a particular department. Another category would rather you digitize all old records before going live. Whichever option you choose, please consider the following questions;
1. Your team:
a. What’s the buy-in from your team like?
b. Are they computer literate/tolerant?
c. How much will the new system disrupt their daily activities?
d. Who takes responsibility?
2. Software:
a. Are you getting a custom software?
b. Are you integrating it a software currently in use?
c. Are you buying one with all the features you need?
3. Hardware and Network:
a. How many computers, scanners, internet devices, etc. will I need versus can I afford?
b. Will your current hardware serve?
c. Will the network be internet or intranet powered
You will also need to update your disaster recovery/management plan to accommodate the new digital record management system.

Feeling Good?
This is a laudable idea, my team will key into it, things will work smoothly, and all record related hassles will come to an end. Uhn….I hate sounding like a pessimist, and any sentence that starts with “well” they say fails the optimist test, but well, it may not quite work that way. Your budget may be overshot, your team may frustrate it deliberately or for lack of understanding of the new system, important resources out of your control like; hardware, network, internet, etc. may fail.

Facing Challenges
Setbacks are only about what they are, setbacks. If things don’t go as planned, my candid advice is to look at each issue and respond accordingly having in your mind that there is much more to gain when things normalize.

Conclusion
As I said earlier, At Sysmax Technologies Limited, we hardly use paper for anything but it wasn’t like this some months ago. Customers would call about an issue and as long as I was not in the office to look at their file, it will be difficult to attend to them. It was more difficult with leads as I could not know initial conversation of our marketers with them. These and many more reasons forced me into driving the company is the direction of eliminating paper-work in our 3 offices.

Now at a glance, I can see all customer appointments and communication with leads, work plans and work done daily, staff records, payments, products, reports, sales, purchases, documents, etc. all accessible via PC, laptop and mobile. Another interesting thing is that, I can log into multiple branches of Sysmax assign staff to various responsibilities and manage their records independent of other branches. Thanks to www.swiftofficeresources.com a one-box office solution for businesses. It is free and you can try it out. Feel free to comment and share this piece.

Charles Ona
President/Founder
Sysmax Technologies Limited

truthspeaks:
We are not surprised. Buhari's govt is synonymous wit deceit

I don't quite agree with you, the BOI YES-P for all intents and purposes is a good scheme but like most laudable ideas, the promoters and managers are the ones not being creative about its implementation. And that portends a serious danger to our economy as creative ideas capable of employing thousands within weeks may at best be dead on arrival

metodz:
This loan criteria is really harsh, 2 guarantors with 5M net worth each, plus post secondary school certificate, plus landed property. This only shows that the security of the money superceeds the desire of BOI to empower youths to grow the economy.
You are not giving us complete cash as loan, you are using more than 50% to buy equipment, that alone leaves no room for squandering the money we have not talked about how much the suppliers of this equipment stands to gain and all this you want the "empowered" youth to still payback in full.
We understand that the security of the loan is important but the equipment are also assets that can be liquidated to fund the loan in case a business is struggling and can't survive. And you will agree with me that the business BOI scrutinize and approve cannot die from the get go, it must have paid back part of the loan before it will default if the business is not thriving, so whatever is left of the loan repayment can be salvaged without 2 guarantors of 5M net worth & tertiary school certificate & landed properties. Unless there is something more to the loan that we are yet to be told.
Its not rocket science is "just common sense" as my icon would say
Please BOI reconsider some of these terms and let's work together to move our great nation forward

Absolutely, in a recession and at a time things are tight, leaders must take the path of creativity for instance; I need 5 million, If my business plan is bankable, provide the minimum required amount say 1,000,000 to start then either disburse more funds as business hits traction or stop funding completely if certain milestones in the revenue projects cannot be reached. The certificate can comfortably cover that kind of arrangement. First the bank will play a supervisory and mentorship role either directly or through experience consultants which will make reduce the risk of failure, increase their experience and guide the entrepreneur gradually through his journey. Unlike the current system which assumes that having a guarantor will scare u into being careful with loan given...very laughable, indeed all businesses will succeed if it works like that.

We need to learn from what America and China are doing. May I add also that, using guarantors does not guaranty any thing.
can't funding be gradual and increased as business starts getting traction? and of caused st

dexter1983:
this is a different one, specially organised and thats why the conditions at initial stage was different

The loan condition is hash. The first thing BOI said is beneficiaries will submit their certificates without any land as collateral, later, it was 1 guarantor, later 2 guarantors, later guarantors must submit their net worth forms with assets (landed and co..) declared, and......Last time I checked, those are the exact criteria to access loans from BOI intervention funds. THERE"S NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT YES-P AND NEVER SAY YOU ARE SUPPORTING BUSINESSES, AFTERALL ITS A LOAN NOT A GRANT

shift15:
Your experience just confirmed that BOI are doing well and have learnt from past mistakes.
Remember the Jonathan YOUWIN programme, many that collected the money used it for something different from the business.
If you are genuine and real, you will look for those that around you that believe in you and they will stand as your guarantor.
5M is not 500M nor 50M, rather than complain on NL, go to work and get those that stand for you and get rich following your dream.

May I tell you, more than 90% of those that tell you they can't get guarantor may have gotten guarantors, don't be a loser.

Don't make comments about what you know nothing about. I am also a would be beneficiary and what the young man said is 100% correct. Please find out how countries like china fund their businesses, if you think alot of people have met the requirements, you hav not asked to find out how many people have been given the loan. For your information, the program was planned and even reviewed to fund 10000 businesses annually. This is the end of the year yet, BOI can't claim 10% of that number have benn given a kobo, that to me is already a vote of no confidence.

The Bank needs to think more creatively and the moment they start thinking like that, they will achieve success rather than deceive Nigerians with documentaries that all is well.