₦airaland Forum

BOARDROOM LESSONS:
Dangote Industries

There was a time when Dangote was essentially a trading business.

It imported cement. It traded commodities.

It built relationships. It understood markets. It distributed products.

And it made money.

But somewhere along the journey, a fundamental question changed.

The question was no longer:

“What can we trade?”

It became:

“What can we build?”

That change in question would fundamentally alter the business.

Dangote Industries was founded in 1981 as a trading business focused initially on importing bagged cement and commodities including rice, sugar, flour and salt. Through the 1990s, the Group made a strategic decision to move from trading into integrated manufacturing. Dangote Cement describes this as the beginning of its ambition to become Africa’s leading cement producer.

The transformation did not stop at manufacturing.

The Group subsequently expanded across cement, sugar, salt, fertiliser, energy, petrochemicals, agriculture and infrastructure, building increasingly integrated businesses around what it sees as essential needs in African markets.

Dangote’s story is therefore not simply a story of growth.

It is a story of strategic reinvention.

And that raises a much more interesting question:

How does a company move from being a participant in a market to building the capabilities, assets and systems that can reshape that market?

That is the question worth taking into the boardroom.

The Rise of a Trading Business

Every great business story has a beginning.

Dangote’s began in trading.

The model was relatively straightforward:

- Buy.

- Move.

- Sell.

- Scale.

The business built experience in commodities and developed an understanding of demand, distribution and the peculiarities of African markets.

But trading has a fundamental limitation.

The trader participates in a value chain.

The manufacturer can increasingly shape the value chain.

That distinction became important.

By the 1990s, Dangote had begun its transition from trading towards manufacturing. The Group’s own history describes this as a deliberate strategic shift, followed by further moves into asset acquisition, expansion and backward integration.

The ambition was becoming bigger than the original business model.

And that is where our Boardroom Lens begins.

1. What Reality Did Dangote Leadership Face?

The first question is always:

What was actually happening in the market?

Nigeria and much of Africa had enormous demand for basic products.

But demand did not necessarily mean local productive capacity.

Cement provides a useful example.

A business could continue importing cement into a growing market.

Or it could ask a different question:

What if we built the capacity to produce it?

That is a completely different strategic proposition.

Instead of merely responding to demand, the company could build the assets required to serve that demand at scale.

Instead of being dependent on external supply, it could move towards greater control over production.

Instead of simply participating in an existing market structure, it could help change that structure.

Dangote Cement ultimately developed a fully integrated quarry-to-customer model and expanded across 11 African countries, with 55 million tonnes of annual production capacity as of 2025.

The important point is not the size.

It is the strategic sequence.

Market opportunity → capability → investment → integration → scale.

That is a very different way of thinking about growth.

2. What Strategic Choices Were Made?

Dangote had choices.

It could remain a trader.

It could continue importing.

It could diversify across commodities.

Or it could make a much more difficult transition:

Build.

Building required capital.

It required technical capability.

It required infrastructure.

It required people.

It required patience.

And it required accepting risks that simply did not exist in the original trading model.

Dangote chose the harder route.

The Group’s own history describes its strategy evolving through several phases: from commodity trading, to manufacturing for import substitution, to strategic asset acquisition, and subsequently to expansion and backward integration.

That evolution is important.

Because strategy rarely arrives fully formed.

It evolves as leadership develops a deeper understanding of:

the market,

the company’s capabilities,

the competitive environment,

and where value can be captured.

The question for a board is therefore not simply:

“What is our strategy?”

It is:

“How should our strategy evolve as the business and its environment evolve?”

3. Which Opportunities Were Pursued or Ignored?

This is perhaps the most interesting part of the Dangote story.

The Group did not simply pursue opportunities because they were fashionable.

Much of its expansion has followed a recurring logic:

Essential products.

Large markets.

Import dependence or supply gaps.

Local production potential.

Opportunity for scale.

The Group describes its core focus as providing local, value-added products and services that meet basic needs through large-scale manufacturing facilities in Nigeria and across Africa.

That logic can be seen across its businesses.

Cement.

Fertiliser.

Refining.

Petrochemicals.

Sugar.

Agriculture.

These are not random adjacencies.

They sit around fundamental economic needs.

And that produces an important strategic lesson:

The best diversification is not necessarily into businesses that look different.

It may be into businesses that share the same underlying economic logic.

4. Dangote: From Trading to Integration

The deeper strategic move was not simply diversification.

It was integration.

Consider cement.

Dangote describes the business as a fully integrated quarry-to-customer producer.

The logic is powerful.

Control the raw material.

Control production.

Control critical infrastructure.

Control logistics.

Control distribution.

And increasingly, control the economics of the value chain.

The refinery takes this philosophy even further.

Dangote Refinery describes itself as an integrated refining, petrochemicals and logistics platform, connecting crude receipt, processing, storage, pipelines, marine access, product loading and dedicated power as one system.

This is more than vertical integration for its own sake.

It is an attempt to manage the system.

And that raises an important boardroom question:

Which parts of our value chain are strategically important enough that we should control them rather than remain dependent on others?

5. What Organisational Capabilities Influenced the Outcome?

This is where the Dangote story becomes much bigger than the founder.

Ambition is one thing.

The ability to execute it is another.

A company that moves from trading into large-scale manufacturing must acquire capabilities it did not previously need.

Engineering.

Project development.

Capital allocation.

Procurement.

Operations.

Technology.

Supply-chain management.

Risk management.

Regulatory capability.

Talent.

Governance.

And leadership at scale.

This is the point at which entrepreneurial ambition must begin to become institutional capability.

Dangote’s current corporate architecture reflects that evolution.

Dangote Cement’s governance structure includes Board committees covering Audit, Compliance & Risk Management; Finance & Investment; Sustainability & Technical; and Remuneration, Governance & Nomination.

That matters because a business of increasing complexity cannot be governed with the same mechanisms that worked when it was much smaller.

The organisation itself must evolve.

6. How Effectively Were Those Decisions Executed?

This is where ambition meets reality.

Large strategic projects are rarely simple.

They require:

- capital.

- time.

- execution discipline.

- technical expertise.

- risk management.

- stakeholder management.

And the ability to stay committed when the original assumptions are tested.

The results are visible in the scale Dangote Cement has achieved: 55 million tonnes of annual capacity across Africa and operations in 11 countries. In 2025, Dangote Cement reported group revenue of about ₦4.307 trillion and EBITDA of about ₦1.981 trillion.

But the more interesting execution story may be the refinery.

The Dangote Petroleum Refinery represents an enormous attempt to solve a structural problem through scale and integration: moving from dependence on imported refined products towards domestic production and regional supply. The refinery describes its model as an integrated system from crude receipt through customer delivery.

Whether one agrees with every strategic choice or not, the underlying lesson is unmistakable:

Big ambition requires extraordinary execution capability.

The Ambition Trap

But there is another side to this story.

Ambition can be powerful.

It can also be dangerous.

A large project can become an expensive monument to management’s confidence.

A new market can consume capital without producing adequate returns.

Vertical integration can create complexity rather than advantage.

Diversification can destroy management focus.

Scale can create bureaucracy.

And a founder’s conviction can become an organisation’s unquestioned assumption.

That is why the board matters.

The board’s job is not to kill ambition.

Nor is it to applaud ambition.

It is to interrogate ambition.

The difficult questions are:

What problem are we solving?

Why this opportunity?

Why now?

Why us?

What capabilities must we build?

How much capital are we willing to commit?

What could go wrong?

What assumptions must prove correct?

How will we know whether the strategy is working?

And perhaps the hardest:

What would make us change our minds?

The Paradox of Ambition

This is the lesson I believe deserves the greatest attention.

The bigger the ambition, the more institutional the organisation must become.

At the beginning of a business journey, the founder’s energy can carry a great deal.

Vision.

Relationships.

Speed.

Intuition.

Risk-taking.

But as the organisation grows, those qualities must be supplemented by:

- systems.

- processes.

- specialist expertise.

- governance.

- capital discipline.

- professional management.

- succession.

- institutional memory.

Because eventually:

The organisation must become capable of carrying the ambition without depending entirely on the person who conceived it.

That may be one of the greatest challenges facing any entrepreneurial business.

The Dangote Lesson for Today's Boardroom

The lesson is not:

“Build a bigger company.”

It is not:

“Diversify aggressively.”

And it is certainly not:

“Think like Dangote.”

The more useful lesson is:

Don’t allow the size of your existing business to define the size of your strategic ambition.

A company may begin by selling products.

It may eventually manufacture them.

It may integrate the supply chain.

It may enter adjacent businesses.

It may build platforms around fundamental customer and market needs.

But every step should answer one fundamental question:

Does this move create a stronger strategic position or merely a bigger organisation?

Because bigger is not necessarily better.

Better is better.


Five Boardroom Questions Dangote Should Make Every Leader Ask

Are we thinking about the business we have or the business the market needs us to become?

Today’s business is visible.

Tomorrow’s opportunity is not.

Boards must make room for both.



Where in our value chain are we unnecessarily dependent?

Dependence is not always bad.

But dependence on a strategically critical input, capability or channel can become a serious vulnerability.

Ask:

What would happen if we lost control of this part of our value chain?


Are we diversifying or building a coherent system?

Every new business should have a strategic reason for existing.

If the only answer is:

“It is a good business,”

that may not be enough.

The better question is:

“How does this strengthen the system we are building?”



Does our organisation have the capability to carry our ambition?

Strategy without capability is aspiration.

If you want to enter new markets, do you have the people?

If you want to scale, do you have the systems?

If you want to integrate, do you have the technical competence?

If you want to deploy significant capital, do you have the governance?



What happens when the founder’s ambition becomes an institution’s responsibility?

This may be the most important question of all.

The entrepreneur may create the vision.

But eventually the organisation must institutionalise it.

That means:

- leadership succession.

- governance.

- accountability.

- culture.

- capability.

= capital discipline.

The ambition must survive the individual.


Dangote Did Not Simply Build a Bigger Business

This may be the most important conclusion.

Dangote’s story is not simply:

trading → manufacturing → diversification → scale.

It is a story of changing the economic logic of the business.

From:

“How do we participate in this market?”

to:

“How do we build the capacity to serve this market?”

Then:

“How do we control more of the value chain?”

And eventually:

“How do we build an integrated business capable of operating at continental scale?”

That is a very different way of thinking about growth.

What Today's Leaders Should Take Away

Dangote’s journey ultimately raises a question that has little to do with cement, sugar or refining.

It is a question about strategic ambition.

What business are you really building?

Not:

What business are you currently running?

There is a difference.

The first describes today’s operations.

The second describes tomorrow’s institution.

And the gap between the two is where strategy lives.

Because sometimes the greatest opportunity available to a business is not to become better at what it already does.

It is to become something more valuable altogether.

The Boardroom Lesson

Dangote’s greatest lesson is not about cement.

It is about ambition.

Ambition can expand the vision.

Vision can change the strategy.

Strategy can demand new capabilities.

Capabilities can change the business model.

And the business model can change the scale of the institution.

But there is a condition.

Ambition must be matched by capability.

Otherwise, ambition remains a dream.

The real achievement is not simply to imagine a bigger business.

It is to build an organisation capable of carrying it.

And perhaps that is the ultimate lesson from Dangote:

Don’t merely ask how big your business can become.

Ask what your business must become to fulfil its ambition.

The Question for Your Boardroom

If your organisation could become five times bigger over the next decade:

What would have to change today?

What capabilities would you need?

What would you have to stop doing?

What would you have to build?

What would you have to control?

What would you have to let go?

And most importantly:

Is your organisation currently designed for the future you say you want or merely optimised for the past that made you successful?

That is the question worth taking into the boardroom.

As we approach 2026, the business landscape in Nigeria presents a unique mix of optimism and challenge. Economic forecasts suggest moderate growth ahead, with various institutions projecting GDP expansion. For example, industry bodies foresee around 4% growth in 2026, supported by improved credit conditions, a stronger naira, and effective policy execution, if reforms are implemented properly.

In this context, the difference between business success and stagnation will come down to one powerful principle: blazing from the onset — delivering meaningful results early in the year through clear strategic alignment and disciplined execution.

 Why Early Results Matter

 In a moderately growing economy as projected, initial traction sets the tone for long-term competitive advantage. Early results help to:

Build trust with stakeholders: investors, partners, and employees gain confidence in leadership that demonstrates progress early.
Strengthen market credibility: executing quickly signals agility and operational resilience to customers and competitors alike.
Uncover opportunities sooner: rapid action brings market insights faster, helping businesses refine direction ahead of competitors.

But bridging strategy and execution is often easier said than done. The rest of this write-up outlines a practical roadmap to ensure your organization blazes into 2026 with purpose and measurable impact.

From Planning to Doing: A Roadmap for Early Impact

 1. Start with Clear Goals and Focused Objectives

 Define what early success looks like. Every strong strategy begins with clarity. This means defining what success looks like by Q1 and Q2 of 2026 — not just by year-end.

Ask yourself and your leadership team:

What are the top three outcomes we must achieve by March/June?
Which products, services, or customer segments will drive early results?
What resources - people, technology, budget - are critical to early delivery?

Early clarity reduces ambiguity and keeps teams aligned on what truly matters.

2. Align Strategy with Market Realities in the Country

 Nigeria’s growth outlook remains positive but moderate. This means strategy must be anchored in achievable opportunities and local market conditions.

Practical areas of focus can include:

Services and digital sectors, where demand and innovation are expanding.
Export-oriented manufacturing, buoyed by ongoing reforms and better access to credit.
Consumer markets, driven by a young and increasingly urban population.

Aligning strategic ambition with economic context ensures goals are both inspirational and executable.

 3. Build Implementation Capacity Before the Year Begins

 Execution isn’t an afterthought — it’s integral from day one. Businesses that blaze from the onset approach implementation as a parallel track to strategy development.

Key elements include:

Cross-functional teams: From finance and operations to marketing and IT — everyone must own execution.
Defined KPIs with short cycles: Weekly or monthly targets create visibility and accountability.
Early resource allocation: Budgeting and capacity decisions need to be made before January 2026 to avoid delays.

Top performers flip the traditional model — they build implementation plans together with strategic goals, ensuring both are inseparable. And very important - Prioritize investment in people and digital tools that accelerate execution.

4. Monitor Feedback, Communicate and Adapt

 In dynamic markets like Nigeria, timely execution requires listening and responding to feedback.

Track market signals: shifts in customer behavior, pricing trends, inflation moves, or currency performance.
Adjust plans quickly: teams should refine approaches in weeks, not months.
Share progress regularly: transparency with stakeholders fosters trust and unlocks additional support when needed.

Communication isn’t just reporting results — it’s building momentum and alignment across the organization.

5. Acknowledge Early Wins and Build Forward Momentum

 Celebrating early success - even modest achievements - is strategic. It reinforces the behaviours that lead to execution excellence and motivates teams to sustain momentum through the rest of the year. Recognition also strengthens trust with investors, partners, and customers.

Conclusion: Ignite 2026 With Strategic Precision

 Blazing from the onset doesn’t mean sprinting blindly. It requires purposeful strategy, early execution capacity, and real-time learning adaptation. With the moderate 2026 economic outlook , businesses that align strategic planning with execution discipline - and deliver early results – stand a chance of standing out year-end.

Read similar business strategy blogs on https://teoaris.com/teoaris-blog/

A few months ago, during a strategy retreat with a colleague, a comment he made caught my attention in an unexpectedly powerful way. He emphasized how important it has become to understand not only the skills of Gen Z employees but also their worldview, motivations, and rhythms — and more importantly, how to genuinely integrate them into leadership conversations. That moment reframed how I view the future of work.

I had read Tom Peters’s "In Search of Excellence" decades ago, where he argued that organizations ignoring young voices in technology leadership were setting themselves up for failure. At the time, the message felt theoretical. Today, it reads almost prophetic. What has changed is that the influence of younger leaders is no longer limited to tech; their impact now touches operations, communication, culture, branding, and even strategy.


Why Bringing Gen Z Into Your Team Matters

Leading proactively means shaping the environment rather than merely responding to it. When it comes to younger employees, this shift is no longer optional; it is strategic. Here are some reasons younger team members can become powerful contributors:

They navigate digital spaces instinctively.

This generation grew up with constant technological evolution, so adopting new tools or figuring out emerging systems feels natural to them. Their ease with learning and experimenting helps small businesses adapt faster.
They see problems through a different lens.
Because they didn’t inherit decades of “this is how we do things,” they often spot alternatives that others overlook. Their willingness to test unconventional ideas can push a business toward more innovative thinking.

They respond strongly to growth opportunities.

Gen Z places high value on learning and skill development. When a business invests in them — through coaching, stretch assignments, or new challenges — they often respond with loyalty and energetic contribution.

They gravitate toward meaningful work.

Many want their jobs to connect with their sense of purpose, ethics, or impact. Companies that articulate real values — and live them — may find Gen Z employees to be deeply aligned and committed.

If a business intends to remain relevant and resilient, integrating these perspectives is no longer a luxury. It’s a forward-looking decision.

Read more: https://teoaris.com/2025/12/06/old-rules-new-possibilities-why-gen-z-might-be-the-spark-your-business-needs/

GROWTH MENTALITY: How Your Mentality Can Limit or Grow Your Business

How will your business perform this year, next year, or five years from now? That question lies at the heart of business strategy and planning — but often we overlook the most fundamental determinant of the answer: your mindset as the owner or founder.

Are you running your business with a “sustenance mindset,” focused on survival and immediate results — or with a visionary, “clock building mindset,” aimed at building something enduring and scalable? The difference between a “gazelle” (a high growth, high potential SME) and a business that remains stuck — or eventually fails — often lies in the founder’s mindset.

Leadership is vital for business survival and growth, but mindset shapes not only how you think about your business — it shapes what you build underneath it.

Regardless of how old your business is – just starting, 2 years, 5 years or 10 years in existence – your mindset as the business leader will have a significant effect on how far the business can go.

Let’s examine how your mindset can limit your business or make it compound and thrive.

Read More: [/b]https://teoaris.com/2025/12/04/growth-mentality-how-your-mentality-can-limit-or-grow-your-business/

[b]The Two Mindsets Compared

Sustenance Mindset

• Focus: Short term survival — cash flow, monthly results, immediate customer satisfaction. Goals are reactive: “get customers now,” “pay bills now,” “make a profit this month.”
• Time horizon: Weeks or months, rather than years.
• Ownership style: The business feels like your personal hustle. Your time, sweat, and identity are deeply entwined.
• Strengths: In early stages, hustle often helps businesses survive turbulence, build initial customers, and generate cash flow.
But when this mindset persists too long — particularly in challenging environments — it can trap a business in constant firefighting: burnout, overwork, inability to think strategically or build scalable systems.

Clock Building (Growth) Mindset

• Focus: Long-term vision. What will the company look like in 3–5–10 years? How can it adapt, outlast competition, and create lasting value?
• Orientation: Building organizational systems, culture, processes that endure beyond the founder’s personal energy or involvement.
• Ownership style: Treating the business as a growth engine — something that should run with or without you.
• Strengths: Enables scalability, resilience, sustainability. The business can survive even through leadership changes, market shifts, or founder burnout.

Adopting a growth mindset doesn’t just alter how you feel — it changes how you build. It’s not about temporarily hustling harder; it’s about constructing an institution that consistently delivers value over time.

Read More: https://teoaris.com/2025/12/04/growth-mentality-how-your-mentality-can-limit-or-grow-your-business/

Why the Mindset Shift Matters — What Research and Experience Show

• Entrepreneurs with a growth oriented mindset are more likely to view defeats as learning opportunities rather than failures. This resilience, mindset research notes, improves their ability to handle setbacks and persist through difficulties.
• With a growth mindset, business leaders tend to be more open to innovation, experimentation, and adaptation — vital in fast changing markets or uncertain economic environments.
• Growth oriented leaders are more likely to build structures: systems, processes, delegation, standardization — enabling scaling without depending solely on the founder’s time or energy.
• A shift from scarcity or survival based thinking to abundance and long term value unlocks reinvestment: investing in technology, staff training, customer experience — transforming expenses into growth levers rather than cost burdens.
• Finally, the mindset of the founder often sets the tone for the entire culture of the enterprise: mindset influences leadership style, team motivation, adaptability, and long-term strategy.
Business mindset is not mere rhetoric, it’s a key determinant of whether a business stays small, struggles, or scales meaningfully.

How to Shift from Hustle & Survive to Build & Scale — Practical Mindset Transitions

If your goal isn’t just staying afloat but building something that lasts, these mindset changes may help:
1. From scarcity/survival thinking → long-term, growth & abundance thinking.
Instead of asking “How do we survive this month?”, ask “What kind of business can we build that lasts 5–10 years?” Believe in the potential to create multiplied value over time, through consistent service, reinvestment, and improvement.
2. From “doing everything myself” → building systems, processes, and structure.
Document workflows, standardize operations (customer service, pricing, delivery). Automate or delegate where possible. This reduces founder-dependency and unlocks scalability.
3. From short-term cash / quick wins → purpose, value creation & long-term strategy.
Look beyond immediate revenue. Define what success means beyond monthly profit — brand reputation, customer satisfaction, repeat business, market position.
4. From founder centric thinking → building a team, culture, and shared ownership.
Recruit or empower people to own parts of the business. Train them, delegate responsibility — the business should be able to run even if you step away.
5. From reactive hustle → intentional, data-driven and strategic decision making.
Track metrics, forecast cash flows, evaluate channels, make informed choices about when to invest, scale, pivot — rather than reacting to urgent but transient problems.
6. From narrow/local mindset → bigger vision: partnerships, networks, wider markets, legacy.
Think: “Where can this business go in 3 or 5 years?” Explore partnerships, collaborations, new markets — not just immediate clients or local area. Build toward legacy, not only profit.

Conclusion: Why Mindset Might Be the Single Most Important Lever for Your Business

If you dream of building something that survives today’s challenges and thrives long after, mindset matters — a lot. What you do, how you structure, whom you hire, how you lead, how you adapt — all begin with how you think about your business.
For founders who want more than just making ends meet — who want to build something scalable, resilient, and enduring — shifting from a sustenance driven mindset to a clock building or growth oriented mindset isn’t optional. It may well be the most strategic move.
But remember: mindset alone isn’t magic. It must be backed by strategic action: building systems, investing in people and processes, staying consistent, and thinking long-term. That combination — mindset + action — is where business transformation really happens.

PS: Bonus

Let’s conclude this piece by scanning some of the top principles of Amazon – established from Day One and remaining as a living mentality. I suspect there is one or two things we can take away from them.

1. Bet on Big Ideas
2. Obsess over Customers
3. Apply Long-Term Thinking
4. Accelerate Time with Technology
5. Promote Ownership
6. Maintain Positive Culture
7. Believe it’s Always Day 1

These principles have worked over the years for Amazon, they are working for them and will work for businesses that stay committed to them too, regardless of the type of business, industry or location. Believing it’s always Day 1 for instance calls for the business owner to embrace humility and to continue to be forward-looking and continually improve.

We hopefully will look at each of these principles soon. In the meantime, keep winning.

More business blogs: https://teoaris.com/teoaris-blog/

The decision to start a business could have a cerebral or visceral underpin – or better still, both.

Regardless of the inspiration for starting, for an enterprise to actualize the vision of the promoters and more importantly to survive new business early mortality “curse”, the business leaders/promoters must be deliberate about developing the business into a SMART one.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at:

1. SMART goal-setting framework
2. What a SMART business is
3. How the concept of SMART business relates to SMART goal-setting framework
4. How to adopt SMART business management
5. 7 things that matter for a SMART business


A Look at SMART Goal-setting Framework

The concept of business SMARTness as propounded in this blog is borrowed from the popular SMART goal-setting framework. Setting SMART (an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) objectives is a good way to plan the steps required to meet long-term goals. It helps with clarification of goals, accountability and timing.

Before we go into the details of what a SMART business is and the key steps towards being one, let’s have a refreshing look at the SMART goal-setting framework.

As generally known within the SMART framework, for objectives to be effective, they must be:

Specific – Expectations, and the objectives to meet must be clearly defined, and responsibilities must be properly allocated. In other words, what needs to be done must be clearly articulated and communicated; having enough details but without ambiguity.

Measurable – The metrics for determining the accomplishment of the objective must be well defined, preferably in quantitative terms.

Attainable – Are the objectives achievable given the existing capabilities and capacity? The resources required to achieve the objective must be available and functional. Such resources would include tools, funds, time, manpower, technology, authority and others, as may be crucial to the accomplishment of the objective.

Relevant – The objectives must be relevant to the overall course of the entity. It must help to meet the purpose of the project, the team or the organisation.

Time-bound – The time-frames for the accomplishment of the objective must be well-articulated.

In general, the SMART framework sets businesses, teams and individuals up for success, helps to give a clear sense of direction and helps businesses organize better to reach their goals.


The Concept of SMART Business[b][/b]

Overall, a SMART business is that which has built efficient planning, monitoring and improvement mechanisms into all its activities and undertakings. Not only do they plan, monitor and improve, but the processes of executing each of these follow the SMART principles.

By so doing, they are constantly ahead of trends and competitors.

Characteristics of a SMART Business
A smart business is one that:

Optimizes the use of its assets to achieve ambitious goals
Knows how to generate, process, and use data generated by its activities; the business consumers (existing and potential); industry; and overall global trends
Is proactive, yet knows how to adapt to market changes through internally built mechanisms for improvement
Has a sustainable advantage over its competitors
Is a digitally efficient business
Developing into a SMART business involves running the enterprise with the SMART framework. We believe this framework can – and should – be adapted as a global core in managing business enterprises, especially new businesses and SMEs.

By intelligently and diligently applying the elements of SMART framework in the day-to-day operational and strategic undertakings of an enterprise, a business gradually becomes smarter and makes an upward journey towards sustainably outperform its competitors.



How to integrate SMART into the business core – 7 things that matter


Business idea and Value Creation Matters
Being smart starts from the first day of formation or when the idea of creating the business was first mooted. Why was the business created? What was the idea behind creating the business? What’s the purpose? Many a business had their destiny nailed right from this formative stage.

Without doubt, every business enterprise is established for a particular purpose. In the conventional theory of the firm, the principal objective of a business firm is profit maximisation. Although this objective has been severely challenged by modern-day business management enthusiasts, the overarching need for business sustainability remains unchallenged.

Whether a business is established out of sustenance reasons; social factors; wealth building; or out of clock-building vision, what is important is that the purpose of the business should be tied to value-creation. A business that cannot sustainably provide value which can sustain it in operations has no business being in business.

It’s not enough to have beautiful vision and mission statements. What’s more important is the quality of value that the business intends to give today, and the improvements (or “disruptions”) that it will make to that value in the future – to sustain growth. This value must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely. The ways and mode of providing this value must be clear to the promoters and the leaders of the business. It is tied to the reason the business exists. Beyond commencement of business, business leaders must continually assess the value subject. For instance, business executives must constantly ask the question – is our value proposition still unique and relevant?

Does your business have a well-formulated philosophy? You can also read more business advancement articles on www.teoaris,com

Corporate Philosophy Matters

A company’s philosophy is a combination of its vision, mission and values; usually manifesting in and influencing its corporate culture. It gives a direction and serves as a guidepost in the journey of the business. For instance, Google’s philosophy is captured in their “Ten things we know to be true” publication. See below..

We first wrote these “10 things” when Google was just a few years old. From time to time we revisit this list to see if it still holds true. We hope it does—and you can hold us to that.

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
2. It’s best to do one thing really, really well.
3. Fast is better than slow.
4. Democracy on the web works.
5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
7. There’s always more information out there.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
10. Great just isn’t good enough.


The above tells a lot about Google as a company, and if you have followed their business, you’ll concur that they have used the above 10 points as a guidepost in their operations and dealings.

Creating and living the right philosophy help you run a SMART business. However, the philosophy must be well articulated, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely.

Note: SMARTness is not in the articulation of the philosophy; living it is where the juice is.

Knowledge matters
“If you don’t understand the details of your business, you’re going to fail” – Jeff Bezoz

Knowing the specifics of your business matters. When we talk of the specifics here, we mean the business dynamics – the numbers that matter and the ones that don’t the driving forces, the risk elements, the industry, the competition etc.

Knowing these specifics is smartness, knowing what’s relevant and what’s not is smartness, and ability to measure the specifics is smartness. Understanding those things that will help you create much better results is smartness.

In reality, business leaders aren’t expected to generate or produce all knowledge all by themselves. However, real smartness lies in hiring the right people and deploying the right systems to generate the information required. Again, as Jeff Bezoz puts it –“we do not hire the people we’re smarter than. We hire those who are smarter than us”. As much as possible, hire very smart people and enable them to produce what you cannot.



Strategies Matters
A business only becomes smart if it’s able to formulate and implement strategies that put it ahead of its competitors. Having the right strategies across your business can make a world of difference and can be the clear separator between your business and the competitors.

Ability to raise required funds requires strategy. Ability to attract the right staff requires strategy. Identifying the right technology that’ll lift your business above the curve requires strategy. Aside these elements, developing that specific (unique), relevant attainable, relevant and timely (SMART) “one idea” or a set of ideas that will disrupt the market requires strategic thinking.

Read also: Business Strategy – An Indispensable Tool for Business Excellence on www.teoaris.com



Corporate Governance matters

According to the Chartered Institute of Governance, UK and Ireland, Corporate governance “is the system of rules, practices and processes by which a company is directed and controlled. It refers to the way in which companies are governed and to what purpose.”

Corporate governance involves balancing the interests of the company’s stakeholders, including investors, the board of directors, management, suppliers, customers, the government, and the immediate community. Components would include structures for corporate, statutory, social and environment accountability.

Whereas, corporate governance is mandatory for running a smart business, it appears to have been reduced in many instances to statutory and industry compliance matter.

Without doubt, a business that will thrive and sustain growth needs to have rules and policies that are specific, measurable, realistic, relevant and time-oriented. In other words, to develop into a smart business, a business must organise itself and operate within the confines of rules, processes and policies that are SMART.

Building corporate governance into the structure of a business from the onset matters. Continual review and improvements of the structures, policies and processes matter.

Organisation Matters

Developing the right organisational structure tailored towards the achievement of business objective is crucial, and it’s a big factor in being a SMART business. We call it the optimal organisation – that in which the assets (human and non human), processes and policies are designed and executed for relevance and achievement.

Consider how smart it is when you have specific and relevant people with SMART Job Descriptions (JD) and SMART Performance Indicators (PI’s) working within a structure that’s optimized for achieving SMART objectives.

Performance Management Matters

“What is not defined cannot be measured. What is not measured cannot be improved. What is not improved is always degraded”

This quote by the British physicist and mathematician, William Thomson Kelvin concisely captures the essence of performance management in developing a SMART business.

Performances across the spectrum of the business must be measured in a SMART way. For such appraisals to be smart, they must be instituted for individuals, teams, departments, divisions and the entire business itself.

Specificity and tailoring of the performance management systems matter. Evaluation metrics matter. Relevance matters. Timeliness of the evaluation matters.



Conclusion

Developing a SMART business could be challenging, but the benefits are immense. The good news is, all that is written above become self-regulating when the necessary mechanisms and processes are put in place.

See you on the side of SMARTness!

Read more articles on www.teoaris.com

Recruiting a brilliant digital marketer in Nigeria.

To remain relevant and competitive in today’s marketplace, virtually all businesses need some vibrant digital marketing resources to drive their digital presence initiatives.

The above statement tells how crucial a function digital marketing has become over the past few years. Though one of the newest professions around, digital marketing is one of the most evolving, and may now appear to be limitless in impact. Its impact is so much that people have asked if it’s bound to replace conventional marketing at some point. While that’s a difficult question to answer at the moment, looking at the astronomical rate digital technology has relentlessly continued to impact the world of business; one may be tempted to incline towards the affirmative.

At the worst, a business must have a strong digital marketing strategy to support and complement its traditional marketing initiatives. The way people shop and buy has changed a lot, and so have successful businesses adjusted their marketing channels to create a big room for digital marketing.

At the crux of every effective digital marketing function is a specialist, or a unit who is responsible for all activities relating to online promotion and selling the brand, products or services of an organisation - The Digital Marketer.

In this blog, we will consider:

- What digital marketers do
- Categorisation of duties of digital marketers and their KPIs
- What to look for in a good digital marketer
- How to recruit  a brilliant digital marketer in Nigeria
- What digital marketers do

Digital marketers drive brand awareness, generate leads for the business, and provide timely and reliable market analytics upon which a business can plan and make effective decisions on products/services, pricing and promotions. The domain of digital marketing channels includes the social media, the business’s website, search engines and emails.

The core responsibilities

Typical responsibilities of a digital marketer will include:

-Develop and implement effective digital marketing strategy for the organisation
-Optimize the business for search engine ranking based on the digital marketing strategy
-Research advertising trends and use the results to build/adjust the organisation's advertisement direction and placements
-Pre-empt competitors digital plans and pro-act to counteract them
-Research competitors marketing strategies and initiatives
-Create and deploy digital campaigns
-Publish digital marketing content online
-Implement email marketing campaigns
-Report on the growth and analytics of campaigns
-Conduct digital market research and customer surveys to inform campaigns
-Develop and maintain functionally effective social media presence for the business
-Analyse and report performances of all digital marketing campaigns
-Utilize strong analytical ability to evaluate end-to-end customer experience across multiple channels

Duties Categorisation and KPIs

Well before employing your digital marketer, it is wisdom to clearly set out the responsibilities and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These KPIs must cover all the 4 regions of the quadrant below.

Continue reading on on the link https://teoaris.com/2024/02/27/how-to-recruit-a-brilliant-digital-marketer-in-nigeria/

Consulting for SMEs in Nigeria requires - among other skills - peculiar understanding of the national and business terrain, and the tenacity to see things through.

Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) play a crucial role in most economies of the world - particularly those of developing countries. According to World Bank figures, up to 70% of jobs are generated by SMEs in developing countries, while formal SMEs contribute up to 40% of national income (GDP) in those economies. These numbers are significantly higher when informal SMEs are included.

In Nigeria, the SME Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) puts SME’s contribution to the country’s GDP at nearly 50% while they account for over 80% of employment in the country.

However, as important as this sector is, its operations are mostly sub-optimal, compounded by poor access to funding, lack of required managerial acumen, lack of effective corporate governance, and many other factors.

This undesirable situation has over the years generated concerns for successive governments in Nigeria who have tried from one initiative to another to address the major challenges facing these crucial economic agents. Much as has been done, SMEs in Nigeria still suffer the unpleasant challenges that have bedeviled them over the years. Perhaps, it’s getting worse.

SMEs IN NIGERIA

The two major categorisations used in Nigeria are those of the Bank of Industry (BOI) and Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN).

BANK OF INDUSTRY’S (BOI) DEFINITION FOR MICRO, SMALL, AND MEDIUM-SIZE ENTERPRISES

Enterprise category / Indicator Micro Enterprise Small Enterprise Medium-size Enterprise

Number of Employees ≤ 10 11 ≤ 50 51 ≤ 200
Total Assets (₦) ≤ 5 million > 5 ≤ 100 million > 100 ≤ 500 million
Annual Turnover (₦) ≤ 20 million ≤ 100 million ≤ 500 million


SMEDAN National Policy on MSMEs Definitions
 

Enterprise category / Indicator Micro Enterprise Small Enterprise Medium-size enterprise

Number of Employees < 5 million 10 to 49 50 to 199
Total Assets (₦) < 5 million ≥ 5 < 50 million ≥ 50 < 500 million


In terms of ownership, SMEs in Nigeria are mostly run as sole-proprietorship. A recent survey by PwC puts SME ownership in Nigeria as follows:

SME Ownership Type (in Nigeria) Percentage

Sole Proprietor 73%
Private Limited Liability 14%
Partnership 6%
Faith Based Organisations 5%
Cooperative 1%
Other 1%


From that survey, PwC came up with the following key findings. Understanding these challenges is key to consulting for SMEs in Nigeria

- Obtaining finance, finding customers and infrastructure deficits are the most pressing problems of SMEs.
- Electricity is responsible for the highest cost to operations followed by rent and cost of capital
- Top economic issues are pressure to reduce prices, rising inflation and low demand for products and services.
- Local government levies are the most difficult taxes to comply with.
- MSMEs would prefer private equity over debt financing.


SME CHALLENGES CODIFIED[/color]

Understandably, consulting for SMEs in Nigeria requires an in-depth appreciation of the major challenges small and medium-sized businesses face. We have in this article organised the challenges affecting SMEs in Nigeria into 5 categories.

Finance

Obtaining finance, finding customers and infrastructure deficits are the most pressing problems of SMEs. SMEs are less likely to have access to bank loans than large businesses. They mostly rely on their internal reserves, personal savings and funds from family and friends to start or perpetuate their businesses. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) estimates that 65 million firms, or 40% of formal micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in developing countries, have an unmet financing need of $5.2 trillion every year.

Truth be told, many start as really micro businesses but the frustrating challenge of scaling without sufficient limited working capital usually impacts on quality of products/services, which may ultimately lead to unabated market share and ultimate mortality.

Heavy Operational Costs

Irregular power supply (in some instances outright non-availability) and the attendant need to run high-cost powers generators has for years remained  major threat to continuity in business for many SMEs. This problem is compounded by ever-increasing cost of petrol and diesel. Interestingly, most SMEs are not able to transfer the rising cost to consumers so as to recover their operating overheads. There’s always the real fear or reality of losing their customers to competing imported products. This takes a toll on profitability, and at some point they start to run losses and ultimately may close business.

Inability to Recruit the Right-Staff

Businesses need people to run. Good people at that. A major problem for SMEs in Nigeria is the challenge of attracting and retaining good staff. Ability to pay for good staff is restricted, and in many cases, even when they got the right staff, those personnel are soon lured by better pay into bigger competitor or a high-paying industry.

Technology and Infrastructural Challenges

Right technology and appropriate infrastructure require funds. Where the funds are not available – as highlighted above – SMEs are left stranded, frustrated and moribund. Application of the right technology enhances and SME’s competition, not just against foreign brands but also larger businesses. The quality of products of many SMEs in Nigeria has been hampered by the use of outdated technology; hence they are not able to effectively compete both in terms of quality and cost.

Corporate Governance Challenges

Poor corporate governance creates a lot of issues for SMEs in Nigeria. Some of those problems include:

- Leadership tussles and conflicts within management and business owners,
- Over-centralisation of decision-making
- Reckless leadership tendencies
- Weak internal controls
- Tax problems created by improper book-keeping
- Stunted growth

Not often cited as a major problem by SME business owners, but this is one factor that has ruined the good dreams and goals of many SME owners.
[color=#000099]
CONSULTING FOR SMEs IN NIGERIA

With the myriad of challenges highlighted above, it would seem that consulting for SMEs in Nigeria is full of problems. Yes, it may be quite challenging but this is where the right skills need to be applied while serving as advisors to SMEs.

Continue reading on https://teoaris.com/2024/02/07/peculiarities-of-consulting-for-smes-in-nigeria/

Our client is a leading supply chain company in Nigeria.

Due to restructuring, the company requires two (2) Customer Service Executives to strengthen their customer relationship management function.


CORE DUTY

The candidate will be responsible for supporting customers by providing helpful information, answering questions, and responding to complaints. You will be the front line of support for customers and prospects, ensuring that they are satisfied with the company’s services.

RESPONSIBILITIES

·         Maintaining a positive, empathetic and professional attitude towards customers at all times

·         Responding promptly to customer inquiries, resolving their issues, and escalating where required

·         Developing and maintaining an effective Customer Relationship Management System

·         Building sustainable relationships and trust with customers through open and interactive communication

·         Acknowledging and resolving customer complaints

·         A top-notch understanding of the company’s products, services and processes

·         Keeping records of customer interactions, transactions, comments and complaints

·         Providing feedback on the efficiency of the customer service process

·         Generating sales leads through customers’ enquiries

·         Identifying and assessing customers’ needs to achieve satisfaction

·         Providing accurate, valid and complete information on the Company’s products and services to customers and prospects

·         Handling customer complaints, providing appropriate solutions and alternatives within the time limits and follow up to ensure resolution

·         Keeping records of customer interactions, process customer accounts and file documents

·         Giving accurate updates on customers’ shipments and cargoes


Location: Lagos, Nigeria


Interested candidates should apply on https://teoaris.com/recruitment-agency-in-nigeria/

Teoaris Consulting is a professional business consulting firm in Lagos with deep competencies in Business Strategy, Recruitment, Tax Services and Executive Training. We are currently looking for Business Management Trainees to support our growth plans.

This position is best suited for candidates who want to acquire skills and experience in diverse business functions with a view to developing astute business management capabilities. The right candidates must be willing to – while acquiring strong competencies in many fields including, finance, marketing, operations and human resources management – support various business engagements of the firm.

In addition, they must have genuine interest in developing skills in Business Strategy, People Management, Digital Marketing and General Administration of businesses.


Responsibilities

- Support managers in implementing diverse consulting assignments
- Assist in conducting various economic, business and market research
- Participate in the company’s strategy development activities while learning on the job
- Provide administrative support
- Support in executing feasibility studies and developing business plans
- Develop marketing plans and strategies for organisations

Requirements and skills

- Bachelor’s degree or HND in Economics, Psychology, Marketing, Accounting or any other business-related discipline
- Not more than 3 years’ working experience (Serving NYSC members are encouraged)
- Ability to efficiently work with the computer, particularly using Microsoft Office tools
- Good verbal communication and writing skills
- Willingness to learn
- Good team spirit

Interested? Click on our job portal link to apply https://teoaris.com/recruitment-agency-in-nigeria/

How to build a SMART business – 7 things that matter

The decision to start a business could have a cerebral or visceral underpin – or better still, both.

Regardless of the inspiration for starting, for an enterprise to actualize the vision of the promoters and more importantly to survive new business early mortality “curse”, the business leaders/promoters must be deliberate about developing the business into a SMART one.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at:

• SMART goal-setting framework
• What a SMART business is
• How the concept of SMART business relates to SMART goal-setting framework
• How to adopt SMART business management
• 7 things that matter for a SMART business

A Look at SMART Goal-setting Framework

The concept of business SMARTness as propounded in this blog is borrowed from the popular SMART goal-setting framework. Setting SMART (an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) objectives is a good way to plan the steps required to meet long-term goals. It helps with clarification of goals, accountability and timing.

Before we go into the details of what a SMART business is and the key steps towards being one, let’s have a refreshing look at the SMART goal-setting framework.

As generally known within the SMART framework, for objectives to be effective, they must be:

Specific – Expectations, and the objectives to meet must be clearly defined, and responsibilities must be properly allocated. In other words, what needs to be done must be clearly articulated and communicated; having enough details but without ambiguity.

Measurable – The metrics for determining the accomplishment of the objective must be well defined, preferably in quantitative terms.

Attainable – Are the objectives achievable given the existing capabilities and capacity? The resources required to achieve the objective must be available and functional. Such resources would include tools, funds, time, manpower, technology, authority and others, as may be crucial to the accomplishment of the objective.

Relevant – The objectives must be relevant to the overall course of the entity. It must help to meet the purpose of the project, the team or the organisation.

Time-bound – The timeframes for the accomplishment of the objective must be well-articulated.
In general, the SMART framework sets businesses, teams and individuals up for success, helps to give a clear sense of direction and helps businesses organize better to reach their goals.

The Concept of SMART Business

Overall, a SMART business is that which has built efficient planning, monitoring and improvement mechanisms into all its activities and undertakings. Not only do they plan, monitor and improve, but the processes of executing each of these follow the SMART principles.
By so doing, they are constantly ahead of trends and competitors.

Characteristics of a SMART Business

A smart business is one that:

• Optimizes the use of its assets to achieve ambitious goals
• Knows how to generate, process, and use data generated by its activities; the business consumers (existing and potential); industry; and overall global trends
• Is proactive, yet knows how to adapt to market changes through internally built mechanisms for improvement
• Has a sustainable advantage over its competitors
• Is a digitally efficient business

Developing into a SMART business involves running the enterprise with the SMART framework. We believe this framework can – and should – be adapted as a global core in managing business enterprises, especially new businesses and SMEs.

By intelligently and diligently applying the elements of SMART framework in the day-to-day operational and strategic undertakings of an enterprise, a business gradually becomes smarter and makes an upward journey towards sustainably outperform its competitors.

How to integrate SMART into the business core – 7 things that matter

1. Business idea and Value Creation Matters

Being smart starts from the first day of formation or when the idea of creating the business was first mooted. Why was the business created? What was the idea behind creating the business? What’s the purpose? Many a business had their destiny nailed right from this formative stage.

Without doubt, every business enterprise is established for a particular purpose. In the conventional theory of the firm, the principal objective of a business firm is profit maximisation. Although this objective has been severely challenged by modern-day business management enthusiasts, the overarching need for business sustainability remains unchallenged.

Whether a business is established out of sustenance reasons; social factors; wealth building; or out of clock-building vision, what is important is that the purpose of the business should be tied to value-creation. A business that cannot sustainably provide value which can sustain it in operations has no business being in business.

It’s not enough to have beautiful vision and mission statements. What’s more important is the quality of value that the business intends to give today, and the improvements (or “disruptions”) that it will make to that value in the future - to sustain growth. This value must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely. The ways and mode of providing this value must be clear to the promoters and the leaders of the business. It is tied to the reason the business exists. Beyond commencement of business, business leaders must continually assess the value subject. For instance, business executives must constantly ask the question – is our value proposition still unique and relevant?

Click to continue reading https://teoaris.com/2024/03/13/how-to-develop-a-smart-business-7-things-that-matter/

How to develop a SMART business – 7 things that matter

The decision to start a business could have a cerebral or visceral underpin – or better still, both.

Regardless of the inspiration for starting, for an enterprise to actualize the vision of the promoters and more importantly to survive new business early mortality “curse”, the business leaders/promoters must be deliberate about developing the business into a SMART one.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at:

• SMART goal-setting framework
• What a SMART business is
• How the concept of SMART business relates to SMART goal-setting framework
• How to adopt SMART business management
• 7 things that matter for a SMART business

A Look at SMART Goal-setting Framework

The concept of business SMARTness as propounded in this blog is borrowed from the popular SMART goal-setting framework. Setting SMART (an acronym for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) objectives is a good way to plan the steps required to meet long-term goals. It helps with clarification of goals, accountability and timing.

Before we go into the details of what a SMART business is and the key steps towards being one, let’s have a refreshing look at the SMART goal-setting framework.

As generally known within the SMART framework, for objectives to be effective, they must be:

Specific – Expectations, and the objectives to meet must be clearly defined, and responsibilities must be properly allocated. In other words, what needs to be done must be clearly articulated and communicated; having enough details but without ambiguity.

Measurable – The metrics for determining the accomplishment of the objective must be well defined, preferably in quantitative terms.

Attainable – Are the objectives achievable given the existing capabilities and capacity? The resources required to achieve the objective must be available and functional. Such resources would include tools, funds, time, manpower, technology, authority and others, as may be crucial to the accomplishment of the objective.

Relevant – The objectives must be relevant to the overall course of the entity. It must help to meet the purpose of the project, the team or the organisation.

Time-bound – The timeframes for the accomplishment of the objective must be well-articulated.
In general, the SMART framework sets businesses, teams and individuals up for success, helps to give a clear sense of direction and helps businesses organize better to reach their goals.

The Concept of SMART Business

Overall, a SMART business is that which has built efficient planning, monitoring and improvement mechanisms into all its activities and undertakings. Not only do they plan, monitor and improve, but the processes of executing each of these follow the SMART principles.
By so doing, they are constantly ahead of trends and competitors.

Characteristics of a SMART Business

A smart business is one that:

• Optimizes the use of its assets to achieve ambitious goals
• Knows how to generate, process, and use data generated by its activities; the business consumers (existing and potential); industry; and overall global trends
• Is proactive, yet knows how to adapt to market changes through internally built mechanisms for improvement
• Has a sustainable advantage over its competitors
• Is a digitally efficient business

Developing into a SMART business involves running the enterprise with the SMART framework. We believe this framework can – and should – be adapted as a global core in managing business enterprises, especially new businesses and SMEs.

By intelligently and diligently applying the elements of SMART framework in the day-to-day operational and strategic undertakings of an enterprise, a business gradually becomes smarter and makes an upward journey towards sustainably outperform its competitors.

How to integrate SMART into the business core – 7 things that matter

1. Business idea and Value Creation Matters

Being smart starts from the first day of formation or when the idea of creating the business was first mooted. Why was the business created? What was the idea behind creating the business? What’s the purpose? Many a business had their destiny nailed right from this formative stage.

Without doubt, every business enterprise is established for a particular purpose. In the conventional theory of the firm, the principal objective of a business firm is profit maximisation. Although this objective has been severely challenged by modern-day business management enthusiasts, the overarching need for business sustainability remains unchallenged.

Whether a business is established out of sustenance reasons; social factors; wealth building; or out of clock-building vision, what is important is that the purpose of the business should be tied to value-creation. A business that cannot sustainably provide value which can sustain it in operations has no business being in business.

It’s not enough to have beautiful vision and mission statements. What’s more important is the quality of value that the business intends to give today, and the improvements (or “disruptions”) that it will make to that value in the future - to sustain growth. This value must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely. The ways and mode of providing this value must be clear to the promoters and the leaders of the business. It is tied to the reason the business exists. Beyond commencement of business, business leaders must continually assess the value subject. For instance, business executives must constantly ask the question – is our value proposition still unique and relevant?

Click to continue reading https://teoaris.com/2024/03/13/how-to-develop-a-smart-business-7-things-that-matter/

2024 TEOARIS CONSULTING EXECUTIVE NOTES

As we look forward to the next phase in the life of our firm, we are excited about the opportunities ahead of us but are also mindful of the challenges before us.

Our opportunities lie in how impactful we’ll be on the organisations we work with, and the series of businesses we’ll create by assisting them to grow and succeed more.

We’ll therefore challenge ourselves more on a daily basis to create perpetual streams of value that’ll help the client envision and activate possibilities they are yet to see. Equally, we’ll assist them to wade off potential obstacles to those possibilities.
In doing this, we’ll remain faithful to our vision and our core values. But in addition, we will – in the next phase of our exciting journey – increasingly focus on the 4 key elements that keep us strong.

Focus on the Client

The client keeps our business alive. The client is the reason we exist. Their satisfaction brings joy to us. Their dissatisfaction calls to question our integrity and existence.

Focus on Integrity

At the heart of all we do is the sanctity of our promise. We will keep to what we have committed to, even when it’s not so convenient. Where circumstances totally and clearly forbid us, we will swiftly ask for understanding with a perfect sense of humility.

Focus on Success

• Success of the client is a passion to us.
• Success of our firm is everyone’s business.
• Success of the job at hand is paramount to our continued existence.
• Personal success of our staff and colleagues is non-negotiable.

Focus on Beauty

• Beauty in our interactions with people.
• Beauty in the quality of our work.
• Beauty of our environment.
• Beauty in Business Consulting

Focus on Improvement

We deliberately and consciously quest for improvement in all we do. Even if our quest for improvement is tagged “inconsistency”, we consider it as a badge of honour.

We therefore look forward to increasingly celebrating our clients’ successes in beauty and with integrity, while we focus on improving continually.

We’ll also continue to celebrate the intrinsic value of our people; enthusing about the diversity of their gifts, talents and skills which bring success to our firm. On the contrary, the firm is resolute in abhorring all form of discrimination, arising from outward appearance, gender, race or culture.

We look forward to an exciting year and beyond.

Visit https://teoaris.com for more updates

Effective recruitment could be tough. Hence, getting it right requires a good balance of automation, human skills and a right balance of data-backed, and intuitive knowledge from experience.


Recruiting right is perhaps even harder in a country like Nigeria where there’s increasing shortage of professional hands in a number of roles; largely orchestrated by actual and proclivity to brain-drain in the country.

While this on its own may seem to be a bad problem; it could interestingly be a good one for some businesses. This is so because ability to attract and recruit better staff - out of the few available - may in practical terms give a business some strategic advantage over its competitors who are not able to recruit them. After all, in the recruitment landscape, many organisations grapple for the best of talents who could facilitate the timely achievement of their business objectives. Yet, only a few are able to get the best. And those who get the best are by that means better positioned to compete.

From posting job openings, sourcing candidates, scheduling interviews, up to conducting assessments and analyses, Teoaris employs variety of skills, tools and experience to recruit highly talented and versatile employees for our clients.

In our consulting experience, many questions/concerns are often raised on how a business can get its recruitment right. Some of those questions range from interesting to heart-rending.

- Why don’t we attract “quality” staff?
- We are so unlucky with staffing; the staff we get don’t always seem to be the right ones.
- Remuneration is always an issue for us when it comes to hiring right.
- Staff loyalty to organisation is rare these days; you just can’t find it.
- John is competent; he just can’t seem to be able to perform well.
- He performed brilliantly during the recruitment processes, but from day one we discovered we got the recruitment wrong.

Organisations are – now and then - awash with above worries and many more. These worries often arise from practical challenges to recruiting right. Some of these challenges, which include:

- Attracting the right candidates
- Engaging qualified candidates
- Fast and efficient hiring
- Placing objectivity above subjective factors
- Creating an efficient recruiting process
- Matching person to organisation or “culture-alignment”
- Matching remuneration with competence

There are real concerns and could be overwhelming. Furthermore, they often lead employers with recruiting the second-best-available rather than what they really desired.

So, how does Teoaris Consulting get hiring right? We simply dare to do it differently, and more efficiently!

How we do it


Our goal when recruiting for an organisation is not just limited to filling the position for the moment, we are passionate about building a talent pool that will improve the business of the organisation today and also give it a sustainable advantage for the future.

With that, we take a strategic approach to recruiting over the oft-shortsighted approach of filling the position now without putting into consideration what will happen in the next few months, two years or another five years. What does this mean? Except for short-term requirements, we only want to recruit staff that will contribute to and enhance our client’s business – today, in the short term, medium term and in the long run. Hence, our recruitment philosophy avoids the usual off-the-peg approach. Rather we take each recruitment as a project, and apply our rigorous procedures, applying unique skills, experience and technology to hire the best.

Applying the 3 cardinal elements of recruitment - Technology, Skills and Experience, is key in our recruitment processes


These three elements fit together. In other words, we implicitly apply the three in every recruitment engagement. These elements are applied in each of our recruitment processes (profiled below).


Why are you recruiting? Where it all starts from

As a professional principle, Teoaris does not start a recruitment process without having a good knowledge of the client's business, the recruitment objectives of the business and the corporate culture. For us, getting the right fit starts with how the role being filled fits into the overall business goals of the business. Hence, the knowledge of the business, its industry, its plans, and its structure is very important to us. Juxtaposing this knowledge with the job role and requirements enables our consultants to apply decades of business consulting experience to create a “candidate personae” that fits the role. This process takes some diligence in analysis but we are always pleased to undergo it as it sets the right foundation for hiring right.

To continue reading, go to https://teoaris.com/2024/03/04/aligning-technology-with-human-skills-for-efficient-recruitment/

Effective recruitment could be tough. Hence, getting it right requires a good balance of automation, human skills and a right balance of data-backed, and intuitive knowledge from experience.


Recruiting right is perhaps even harder in a country like Nigeria where there’s increasing shortage of professional hands in a number of roles; largely orchestrated by actual and proclivity to brain-drain in the country.

While this on its own may seem to be a bad problem; it could interestingly be a good one for some businesses. This is so because ability to attract and recruit better staff - out of the few available - may in practical terms give a business some strategic advantage over its competitors who are not able to recruit them. After all, in the recruitment landscape, many organisations grapple for the best of talents who could facilitate the timely achievement of their business objectives. Yet, only a few are able to get the best. And those who get the best are by that means better positioned to compete.

From posting job openings, sourcing candidates, scheduling interviews, up to conducting assessments and analyses, Teoaris employs variety of skills, tools and experience to recruit highly talented and versatile employees for our clients.

In our consulting experience, many questions/concerns are often raised on how a business can get its recruitment right. Some of those questions range from interesting to heart-rending.

- Why don’t we attract “quality” staff?
- We are so unlucky with staffing; the staff we get don’t always seem to be the right ones.
- Remuneration is always an issue for us when it comes to hiring right.
- Staff loyalty to organisation is rare these days; you just can’t find it.
- John is competent; he just can’t seem to be able to perform well.
- He performed brilliantly during the recruitment processes, but from day one we discovered we got the recruitment wrong.

Organisations are – now and then - awash with above worries and many more. These worries often arise from practical challenges to recruiting right. Some of these challenges, which include:

- Attracting the right candidates
- Engaging qualified candidates
- Fast and efficient hiring
- Placing objectivity above subjective factors
- Creating an efficient recruiting process
- Matching person to organisation or “culture-alignment”
- Matching remuneration with competence

There are real concerns and could be overwhelming. Furthermore, they often lead employers with recruiting the second-best-available rather than what they really desired.

So, how does Teoaris Consulting get hiring right? We simply dare to do it differently, and more efficiently!

How we do it


Our goal when recruiting for an organisation is not just limited to filling the position for the moment, we are passionate about building a talent pool that will improve the business of the organisation today and also give it a sustainable advantage for the future.

With that, we take a strategic approach to recruiting over the oft-shortsighted approach of filling the position now without putting into consideration what will happen in the next few months, two years or another five years. What does this mean? Except for short-term requirements, we only want to recruit staff that will contribute to and enhance our client’s business – today, in the short term, medium term and in the long run. Hence, our recruitment philosophy avoids the usual off-the-peg approach. Rather we take each recruitment as a project, and apply our rigorous procedures, applying unique skills, experience and technology to hire the best.

THREE CARDINAL ELEMENTS OF TEOARIS RECRUITMENT

Applying the 3 cardinal elements of recruitment - Technology, Skills and Experience, is key in our recruitment processes


These three elements fit together. In other words, we implicitly apply the three in every recruitment engagement. These elements are applied in each of our recruitment processes (profiled below).


Why are you recruiting? Where it all starts from

As a professional principle, Teoaris does not start a recruitment process without having a good knowledge of the client's business, the recruitment objectives of the business and the corporate culture. For us, getting the right fit starts with how the role being filled fits into the overall business goals of the business. Hence, the knowledge of the business, its industry, its plans, and its structure is very important to us. Juxtaposing this knowledge with the job role and requirements enables our consultants to apply decades of business consulting experience to create a “candidate personae” that fits the role. This process takes some diligence in analysis but we are always pleased to undergo it as it sets the right foundation for hiring right.

To continue reading, go to https://teoaris.com/2024/03/04/aligning-technology-with-human-skills-for-efficient-recruitment/

Effective recruitment could be tough. Hence, getting it right requires a good balance of automation, human skills and a right balance of data-backed, and intuitive knowledge from experience.

Recruiting right is perhaps even harder in a country like Nigeria where there’s increasing shortage of professional hands in a number of roles; largely orchestrated by actual and proclivity to brain-drain in the country.

While this on its own may seem to be a bad problem; it could interestingly be a good one for some businesses. This is so because ability to attract and recruit better staff - out of the few available - may in practical terms give a business some strategic advantage over its competitors who are not able to recruit them. After all, in the recruitment landscape, many organisations grapple for the best of talents who could facilitate the timely achievement of their business objectives. Yet, only a few are able to get the best. And those who get the best are by that means better positioned to compete.

From posting job openings, sourcing candidates, scheduling interviews, up to conducting assessments and analyses, Teoaris employs variety of skills, tools and experience to recruit highly talented and versatile employees for our clients.

In our consulting experience, many questions/concerns are often raised on how a business can get its recruitment right. Some of those questions range from interesting to heart-rending.

- Why don’t we attract “quality” staff?
- We are so unlucky with staffing; the staff we get don’t always seem to be the right ones.
- Remuneration is always an issue for us when it comes to hiring right.
- Staff loyalty to organisation is rare these days; you just can’t find it.
- John is competent; he just can’t seem to be able to perform well.
- He performed brilliantly during the recruitment processes, but from day one we discovered we got the recruitment wrong.

Organisations are – now and then - awash with above worries and many more. These worries often arise from practical challenges to recruiting right. Some of these challenges, which include:

- Attracting the right candidates
- Engaging qualified candidates
- Fast and efficient hiring
- Placing objectivity above subjective factors
- Creating an efficient recruiting process
- Matching person to organisation or “culture-alignment”
- Matching remuneration with competence

There are real concerns and could be overwhelming. Furthermore, they often lead employers with recruiting the second-best-available rather than what they really desired.

So, how does Teoaris Consulting get hiring right? We simply dare to do it differently, and more efficiently!

How we do it


Our goal when recruiting for an organisation is not just limited to filling the position for the moment, we are passionate about building a talent pool that will improve the business of the organisation today and also give it a sustainable advantage for the future.

With that, we take a strategic approach to recruiting over the oft-shortsighted approach of filling the position now without putting into consideration what will happen in the next few months, two years or another five years. What does this mean? Except for short-term requirements, we only want to recruit staff that will contribute to and enhance our client’s business – today, in the short term, medium term and in the long run. Hence, our recruitment philosophy avoids the usual off-the-peg approach. Rather we take each recruitment as a project, and apply our rigorous procedures, applying unique skills, experience and technology to hire the best.

          THREE CARDINAL ELEMENTS OF TEOARIS RECRUITMENT

Applying the 3 cardinal elements of recruitment - Technology, Skills and Experience, is key in our recruitment processes


These three elements fit together. In other words, we implicitly apply the three in every recruitment engagement. These elements are applied in each of our recruitment processes (profiled below).


Why are you recruiting? Where it all starts from

As a professional principle, Teoaris does not start a recruitment process without having a good knowledge of the client's business, the recruitment objectives of the business and the corporate culture. For us, getting the right fit starts with how the role being filled fits into the overall business goals of the business. Hence, the knowledge of the business, its industry, its plans, and its structure is very important to us. Juxtaposing this knowledge with the job role and requirements enables our consultants to apply decades of business consulting experience to create a “candidate personae” that fits the role. This process takes some diligence in analysis but we are always pleased to undergo it as it sets the right foundation for hiring right.

To continue reading, go to https://teoaris.com/2024/03/04/aligning-technology-with-human-skills-for-efficient-recruitment/

Crafting a stable course for business advancement and sustainability (Part 1)


 Introduction

Until recent past, the concept of building enduring business institutions did not seem ingrained in many Nigerian entrepreneurs. It was archetypal of most entrepreneurs to found and run their businesses –even the ones that later endured – first with sustenance considerations, and then, for pride and social mileage derived from being “successful” businessmen.

Was vision lacking? No! Just that the vision was somewhat limited to the immediate and the short-term. Truth be told, a vision so restricted rarely builds a lasting, clock-building business. A vision premised on gratification ego and personal accumulation of wealth hardly endures.

In their book – Built to Last, Jim Collins and Jerry Porras encapsulate the clock-building concept of businesses in a very intelligent way. They differentiate between having a great idea upon which a business thrives at a moment, and building a company that can prosper far beyond the presence of any single leader, and through multiple product/service life cycles.

The authors further propound that searching for a single great idea on which to build success is time-telling while building an organization that can generate many great ideas over a long period of time is clock-building. Enduring greatness requires clock-building. They try to relegate the idea that having a great product and a great leader (or great leaders) is strategic advantage to any business.

For the purpose of this piece, we take strategic advantage in this context as giving the business an edge to thrive for - and endure - generations.

To thrive for – and endure – generations would mean that such a business has entrenched in their organisations and systems life-renewing mechanisms. Such mechanisms are analogous to finding answers to questions such as:

What type of enduring business do we want to build?[color=#000099][/color]

What systems should we construct that will give us the kind of business we envision?
What processes can we create that will give us good leaders after we’re dead and long gone?

Ultimately, such businesses defy the parameters imposed by traditional business life cycle.


The Traditional Business Life Cycle

Students and enthusiasts of business management are well familiar with the growth stages of a business, typically called The Business Life Cycle.

Business life cycle is the progression of a business in phases over time. All businesses would hypothetically pass through all the phases, but not all will or need to.

The cycle is typically divided into 5 phases.

Phase

Launch

·         New product/service is launched.

·         Sales low but growing


Growth

·         Sales growth

·         Positive cash flow


Shake-out

·         Sales continue to grow but at a slower rate

·         Cash flow increases


Maturity

·         Sales decrease slowly

·         Profit margin gets thinner

·         Business calls for growth renewal


Decline

·         Sales, profit, and cash flow all decline

·         Business loses their competitive advantage and finally exits the market.



Crafting a stable course that defies business decline

During maturity phase, strategic businesses perennially renew by rejuvenating themselves, improving processes, and investing in new technologies and emerging markets.

This perennial renewal, oiled by built-in processes and systems is what determines the ability of a business to – from time to time, and from generation to generation - reposition themselves in their industries and refresh their growth in the marketplace. They - time after time - question the fundamentals of their business model; reconsider many things, and reject, refine, reshape or rebuild.

Right from the start of the business, but more so as it nears its maturity stage, the systems and processes for continually generating great ideas must be integrated into the engine of the business. This is what we call clock-building machinery.

Clock-building and the business leader

But does it really it take a great leader to build a clock-building machinery? In our opinion, it does take one. Not a great leader in the one who gravitates towards ego and self gratification, but a clock-building leader who understands and imbibes the necessity of sacrifices in leadership. A leader who’s forward-thinking, process-oriented and gracious enough to create a system –starting from her – that makes leaders within the organisation (now and in the future) subject self to the collective beliefs and value system of the business. Humble leaders are great because they make their people feel great and empowered when they’re around them. And where you have multiples of leaders and people within an organisation who feel empowered and emotionally committed, issue of good succession becomes easier – from one generation to another.

More than the leader: Continuous organisational advancement requires dynamic strategies

Before we delve into the necessity for dynamic strategies, the following statistics are worthy of note.

- 74% of executives who don't believe that their company's transformative strategies will succeed (McKinsey)
- Only 2% of business leaders are confident that they will achieve 80–100% of their strategic objectives. (Bridges Business Consulting)
- 67% of well-formulated strategies failed due to poor execution. (Havard Business Review)

Click to continue reading https://teoaris.com/2024/02/29/crafting-a-stable-course-for-business-advancement-and-sustainability-part-1/

Introduction[b][/b]

Delegation is one of the most underrated leadership skills that entrepreneurs and leaders credit their success to. And as Richard Branson puts it, "If you really want to grow as an entrepreneur, you've got to learn to delegate."

Delegation is crucial to effective management. Busy managers would always have so much to do and constraints of time - in some cases requisite expertise -may be inadequate. Delegate well, the manager is able to achieve so much within the time and knowledge constraints she has. Where not done or inappropriately done, undesirable consequences follow.

Delegation is not about allocating uninteresting tasks to others, but it is about assigning a job out of the many we have, so they could be completed timely and efficiently. It’s about meeting goals. But perhaps equally important, it is about encouraging people to learn new skills and reach their potential – in the process helping the organisation to grow and the manager being more effective. Remember, it is an indication of greatness when a leader consciously, intentionally and happily enables his employees to achieve and become capable and more productive. As Max de Pree puts it, “The measure of leadership is not the quality of the head, but the tone of the body”.

The desire for certainty and control is deep-seated in most human beings. First, because it feels good to believe we are able to do things without being dependent on others – particularly those we feel are subordinate to us. Second, because we tend to feel highly accomplished when we are able to shape outcomes of events without help from others.

While being in control of “all” things may be a good thing, an efficient manager must be able draw a line, beyond which his propensity for control can make him inefficient and consequently miserable.

Thankfully, delegation is an art. It’s a skill that can be – and should be developed, if lacking.

Benefits of delegating[/color]

Benefits of delegation are numerous.

- Delegation encourages and inspires creativity
- Delegation builds trust within the team/organisation
- Delegation helps in developing people
- Delegation saves time and improves effectiveness
- Delegation motivates and builds morale
- Delegation can lead to better way of doing things
- Delegation frees up time for a manager to do real managerial work – planning, organising and coordinating
- It reduces stress on the leader


Why people find it difficult to delegate[color=#000099]

With these enormous benefits, why does delegation remain one of the more difficult processes in management and leadership to be effectively accomplished? The reasons vary from fear, to ignorance, to distrust and ego.


Impatience and distrust for the process

Some leaders think delegating can be time-consuming. After all, they can get the task done in a few minutes rather than wait for the staff to undergo the learning curve. It often seems quicker to get the job done rather than take time to explain how to do it to someone else and then correct their mistakes after. On the contrary, when done correctly, many leaders are pleasantly surprised by the quality and speed with which the staff has gotten the job done. Truth is, when people know you trust them well enough to delegate an important task, they put their heart into it and it boosts their motivation to get the job done.

Insecurity

Some managers could be insecure in their positions and abilities so much so that they feel constantly threatened by the competence of their subordinates. In these situations, they are apprehensive about delegating tasks to the subordinates for fear of the subordinate taking the shine off them. They feel threatened that by the confidence of an employee who’s quick on the delegated task and delivered efficiently – thinking the employee may take over the role from them or be seen as a more competent staff.

However, acknowledging the competence of a staff in certain regards is a mark of good leadership rather than a weakness. No one is a paragon of universal competence. We must therefore develop trust in the moment and realise that when we willingly give authority, most people are appreciative and tend to return with loyalty.


Being a control freak

Some people just want to be in charge and cannot let go. They constantly feel the need to make themselves indispensable. Such should realise that all leadership is temporary and transient as situations come to an end with time and circumstances.


Reluctance to delegate tasks considered too “weighty”


Some managers are guilty of “excessive empathy”. They are reluctant to delegate to their subordinates certain jobs they consider tedious and would rather do them, even when they are weighed down themselves. Empathy is a good leadership virtue, no doubt. However, when it borders on making a leader ineffective, the lines need be drawn.

Reluctance to give more work to “overworked” staff

Similar to the above point, some leaders would see adding an additional task to the workload of a staff who’s having so much on his table as “inconsiderate”. This may not usually be appropriate. A leader must regularly evaluate the strengths of her staff and determine if there’s a need to reshuffle workloads, and give some of the tasks on his table to some certain staff while re-allocating some they at that moment have to other staff.

Where to start from

Some do not just know when and how to delegate. So, they’d rather do the job themselves.

How to delegate effectively[color=#000099][/color]

Effective delegation requires some planning. To delegate well and achieve results without stress, you need to consider the following.

Planning

Yes, delegation needs to be clearly thought out.

What tasks should I delegate?
Who should I delegate to?
What deliverables do I desire?
Discuss tasks to be delegated and provide guidance

This is where many fail in the process of delegating. Tasks being delegated need to be clearly discussed with the staff. What is to be achieved, the purpose and when it’s desired. The manager also needs to provide guidance on how the task should be accomplished while – and very important – giving room for creativity.

Click to continue reading https://teoaris.com/2024/02/28/how-to-delegate-and-get-desired-results/

With the right employees in place, an organisation’s business challenges are half-way solved.

The statement above is even more apt in a country like Nigeria. With a large pool of skilled and talented people, it’s expected that getting the right personnel shouldn’t pose much serious challenge to businesses. While there may be no shortage of talent in Nigeria, identifying the right ones and retaining them continue to be recruiters’ nightmare. This challenge pervades recruitment for virtually all skilled roles in the country; including accounts & finance roles.

This blog highlights 10 factors to consider in the hiring process to recruit good accountants in Nigeria.

The need to recruit good accountants

Regardless of its size, every business organisation needs an accountant. For many start-ups, the owner or a surrogate may take the role of the accountant (book-keeper) together with other functions. But as the business grows, it’s crucial to engage the services a professional accountant.

Large organisations would employ scores of accountants performing different roles – mostly towards an ultimate goal. Aside from capturing financial transactions with a reasonable level of accuracy, the 21st century accountant is expected to be fully business-minded and must be able to directly or indirectly offer reasonable advice to business managers/owners on business survival, growth and sustainability. This responsibility typically involves several duties, such as:

Formulation of financial policy
Financial planning, budgeting & budgetary control
Formulation/Compliance with internal controls
Recording, categorization and presentation of financial reports.
Cost management & control
Financial analysis and reporting
Safeguard of business assets and investments

Such – and as widely acknowledged – the role of a competent accountant in the success of a business cannot be over-emphasized. The question then is what it really takes to recruit a good accountant either for just accounting responsibility or combined with a financial management role.

To start with, there appears to be quite a dearth of very competent candidates for finance and accounts position in the Nigerian job market. From our interactions with hundreds of candidates for various Finance and Accounts roles for clients in the last couple of years as Recruitment Consultants of repute in Nigeria, findings show that getting candidates who comprehensively meet essential competence requirements for various accounting and finance roles is not an easy task. This paucity of competencies calls for recruiters and employers to dig really deep if they desire to recruit very good candidates.

What to test for

Either as recruitment consultants, employers or recruitment agency, the following competencies are important evaluation criteria in the process of recruiting good accountants.

1. Test for sound understanding and practical application of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). This is the bedrock of accounting upon which capturing of transactions, reporting, planning and analysis rest. For a fact, a candidate that falls short in this gets you nowhere.

2. Particularly test for strong understanding of double entry principles. We find it shocking that many accountants – chartered and not – of varying years of experience, fall short on simple understanding of basic double entry principles. For instance, and as simple as it may seem, complete entries for a simple sales transaction is a nightmare to many candidates.. It’s shocking to hear some of them attribute this to automation – “after all accounting software does the double entry processing”. This simply can’t be logical.

Link to read more https://teoaris.com/2024/02/27/how-to-recruit-great-accountants-in-nigeria/

With the right employees in place, an organisation’s business challenges are half-way solved.

The statement above is even more apt in a country like Nigeria. With a large pool of skilled and talented people, it’s expected that getting the right personnel shouldn’t pose much serious challenge to businesses. While there may be no shortage of talent in Nigeria, identifying the right ones and retaining them continue to be recruiters’ nightmare. This challenge pervades recruitment for virtually all skilled roles in the country; including accounts & finance roles.

This blog highlights 10 factors to consider in the hiring process to recruit good accountants in Nigeria.
The need to recruit good accountants

Regardless of its size, every business organisation needs an accountant. For many start-ups, the owner or a surrogate may take the role of the accountant (book-keeper) together with other functions. But as the business grows, it’s crucial to engage the services a professional accountant.

Large organisations would employ scores of accountants performing different roles – mostly towards an ultimate goal. Aside from capturing financial transactions with a reasonable level of accuracy, the 21st century accountant is expected to be fully business-minded and must be able to directly or indirectly offer reasonable advice to business managers/owners on business survival, growth and sustainability. This responsibility typically involves several duties, such as:

Formulation of financial policy
Financial planning, budgeting & budgetary control
Formulation/Compliance with internal controls
Recording, categorization and presentation of financial reports.
Cost management & control
Financial analysis and reporting
Safeguard of business assets and investments

Such – and as widely acknowledged – the role of a competent accountant in the success of a business cannot be over-emphasized. The question then is what it really takes to recruit a good accountant either for just accounting responsibility or combined with a financial management role.

To start with, there appears to be quite a dearth of very competent candidates for finance and accounts position in the Nigerian job market. From our interactions with hundreds of candidates for various Finance and Accounts roles for clients in the last couple of years as Recruitment Consultants of repute in Nigeria, findings show that getting candidates who comprehensively meet essential competence requirements for various accounting and finance roles is not an easy task. This paucity of competencies calls for recruiters and employers to dig really deep if they desire to recruit very good candidates.
What to test for

Either as recruitment consultants, employers or recruitment agency, the following competencies are important evaluation criteria in the process to recruit good accountants.

1. Test for sound understanding and practical application of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). This is the bedrock of accounting upon which capturing of transactions, reporting, planning and analysis rest. For a fact, a candidate that falls short in this gets you nowhere.

2. Particularly test for strong understanding of double entry principles. We find it shocking that many accountants – chartered and not – of varying years of experience, fall short on simple understanding of basic double entry principles. For instance, and as simple as it may seem, complete entries for a simple sales transaction is a nightmare to many candidates.. It’s shocking to hear some of them attribute this to automation – “after all accounting software does the double entry processing”. This simply can’t be logical.

Link to read more https://teoaris.com/2024/02/27/how-to-recruit-great-accountants-in-nigeria/

If you don’t understand the details of your business, you’re going to fail – Jeff Bezoz

A few years back, I was sitting with a middle-aged entrepreneur in Lagos who had invested tremendous resources of money, time and efforts in his venture but was enormously frustrated that despite the amount of investment he had put into the business, nothing seemed to be working – “Nothing works in this country”, he lamented.

Paradoxically, he would refer to a competitor who apparently was way ahead in success and ask “But how do they do it?”

In my over two decades of business consulting experience, I’ve encountered scores of entrepreneurs as this. Regrettably lamentations do not stop a business from failing. Young, middle-aged or old; business failure is not a respecter of age. The dynamics of business is such that when you do not play by the intricate rules of effective management of business, the risk of failure becomes enhanced even from the outset. Dead on arrival? Possibly yes! But for many others, it’s dead on the way.

Research shows that 20% of new businesses fail during the first two years, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first 10 years. Only 25% of new businesses make it to 15 years or more. The seed of failure of many of these businesses were sown from the first day of operations – some as early as when the business idea was conceived.

So, why do some businesses fail where others succeed? While from one business climate to another, from an economy to another, and even from sector to sector, there are myriad of reasons businesses fail, we have carefully selected the top 5 factors business owners and managers whether as small businesses or very large ones should take note of.
Why businesses fail

Poor planning

This could be both strategic and operational or a combination of the two.

At the strategic level, the following are worthy of note.

Misconceived business ideas
Lack of vision or weak vision
Inappropriate strategies or poor deployment

At the operational level, issues relating to poor financing and weak organisation sooner than later drive businesses out of existence, if not properly addressed. Other potential killers are:

Weak structures and processes
Incompetent management and
Bad corporate culture



Lack of effective corporate governance framework

Corporate governance is the system of rules, practices, and processes by which a firm is directed and controlled – Investopedia

Corporate governance essentially involves balancing the interests of a company’s many stakeholders – shareholders, senior management executives, customers, suppliers, financiers, the government, and the community. Sadly, many organisations, especially at the earlier years of existence struggle with striking this balance. And so, it’s not unusual to find situations where these businesses battle with issues on statutory compliance defaults, staff dissatisfaction and financial obligations defaults. These issues, which often than not become intractable, lead to the eventual collapse of many businesses.



Poor Financial Management

The language of business is money. Having adequacy of it and managing it well is what ultimately signals the success of a business. One the one hand, businesses should avoid the temptation of overtrading or premature scaling which ultimately lures them into a position of being highly geared in debts where they have access to funds, or reputation damage and loss of business where they don’t and they are not able to meet the demands of their customers. On the other, effective management of financial resources available is crucial to the success or failure of a business. Many businesses, particularly SMEs do not have competent financial managers who could guide them through tricky paths of effective financial planning and treasury management.



Leadership failure

Businesses fail because of poor leadership. The pinnacle of decision making in an organisation is the leadership. Decisions of who to hire, how to raise capital, pricing, which markets to operate and strategies to adopt invariably lie on the leadership of the business. When corporate leaders get this right, the business prospers but where they consistently get them wrong, the business is set on a path to demise.

I often argue that the first set of people to be trained in an organisation is the leaders. Effective leadership in business management evolves and leaders must constantly upgrade themselves to meet the needs of the current. Unfortunately many businesses have been ruined by the actions and inactions of the owners themselves or those put at the helm.



Lack of REAL Value Creation

The world wants value. Customers desire and pay for value. However, many businesses struggle to create or deliver real value to the market. Differentiation rules the world of business. Is your business distinct in your product, service delivery, customer service etc? There must be at least one thing that the customer passionately or sometimes emotionally holds onto in your service or product(s). Where this does not exist, sustainability becomes a challenge in this exponentially changing business world. Succinctly put, many businesses belonging to the “me-too” bandwagon enclave invariably get choked by competition. They wither and die.

The question then is, how do I create real value that'll be accepted by my target market? Visit www.teoaris.com



Business leaders should look at the pitfalls ahead through careful planning, take advantage of uncommon through deliberate visioning, constantly develop their leadership skills and hire the best human resources available to help in the survival and success of their business.

To read more, visit www.teoaris.com

If, and as it is commonly agreed, the effectiveness of a leader significantly premises on doing the right things, then, a primary assignment of a leader is not just to have ideas in form of a vision, but also and more important, to focus on galvanizing; assisting; encouraging and supporting people to input their best for the best-possible results.

In his book “Leadership is an Art”, Max De Pree, the charismatic former CEO of centurial and highly reputed American furniture manufacturing company - Herman Miller, tells the posthumous story of an employee (a millwright) who had worked in the company for several years.

On a condolence visit to the family, the late millwright’s wife sought to read aloud some poetry. She came back with a bound book and for several minutes read selected (out of a lot) pieces of super-beautiful poetry. When asked who the poet was, the deceased’s wife replied they were written by her late husband. Everyone was amazed. Even for a couple of decades after, many wondered if the millwright was actually a poet who did a millwright’s work or he was a millwright who wrote poetry.

Abandoning Self to the Strengths of Others

The above anecdote sets a crucial background for this little piece on the need for leaders to intrinsically endorse the concept of persons; embrace diversity of people’s gifts and talents; and entrench principles that’ll liberate people to do what is required of them in the most-possible congenial atmosphere.  If, and as it is commonly agreed, the effectiveness of a leader significantly premises on doing the right things, then, a primary assignment of a leader is not just to have ideas in form of a vision, but also and more important, to focus on galvanizing; assisting; encouraging and supporting people to input their best for the best-possible results. This involves abandoning oneself to the strengths of others.


In his article “What Makes an Effective Leader” (Harvard Business Review 2004), Peter Drucker, though acknowledged that many of the best business and nonprofit CEOs he had worked in his over 65-year consulting career, were not stereotypical leaders but “varied in terms of their personalities, attitudes, values, strengths, and weaknesses”, he nevertheless highlighted some non-negotiable practices that make effective leaders.

Effective leaders ask “What needs to be done?”
Effective leaders ask “What is right for the enterprise?”
Effective leaders take responsibility for communicating
Effective leaders think and act “we” rather than “I”

The above factors take some “self-abandoning”. But abandoning what?

True Leaders “Abandon” Self to Collective Purpose

True leaders abandon selves to the collective beliefs and value system. First, they continually review and challenge the corporate value system to see what works and what doesn’t. But more important, they subjugate their interests and desires to agreed collective philosophies. Business leaders should inexcusably be the number one corporate values champion. Regrettably, many leaders fail in this regard due to economic, social and status pressures.

True leaders abandon their interests and desires to creating/weaving healthy relationships within the enterprise. Beyond that, they provide enablers for their followers to create healthy relationships even outside the immediate organisation – at home – among friends –within the society. A tough task? Yes, it takes sacrifices. True leaders know (and act by design) that the role demands something (a lot) of them that’s beyond the dignity and paraphernalia of the office.


Click to continue reading https://teoaris.com/2024/02/28/sacrifice-of-leadership/

Recruiting a brilliant digital marketer in Nigeria.

To remain relevant and competitive in today’s marketplace, virtually all businesses need some vibrant digital marketing resources to drive their digital presence initiatives.

The above statement tells how crucial a function digital marketing has become over the past few years. Though one of the newest professions around, digital marketing is one of the most evolving, and may now appear to be limitless in impact. Its impact is so much that people have asked if it’s bound to replace conventional marketing at some point. While that’s a difficult question to answer at the moment, looking at the astronomical rate digital technology has unabashedly continued to impact the world of business; one may be tempted to incline towards the affirmative.

At the worst, a business must have a strong digital marketing strategy to support and complement its traditional marketing initiatives. The way people shop and buy has changed a lot, and so have successful businesses adjusted their marketing channels to create a big room for digital marketing.

At the crux of every effective digital marketing function is a specialist, or a unit who is responsible for all activities relating to online promotion and selling the brand, products or services of an organisation - The Digital Marketer.

In this article, we’ll consider:

- What digital marketers do
- Categorisation of duties of digital marketers and their KPIs
- What to look for in a good digital marketer
- How to recruit a brilliant digital marketer in Nigeria

What Digital Marketers Do


Digital marketers drive brand awareness, generate leads for the business, and provide timely and reliable market analytics upon which a business can plan and make effective decisions on products/services, pricing and promotions. The domain of digital marketing channels includes the social media, the business’s website, search engines and emails.

The core responsibilities

Typical responsibilities of a digital marketer will include:

• Develop and implement effective digital marketing strategy for the organisation
• Optimize the business for search engine ranking based on the digital marketing strategy
• Research advertising trends and use the results to build/adjust the organisations advertisement direction and placement.
• Pre-empt competitors digital plans and pro-act to counteract them
• Research competitors marketing strategies and initiatives
• Create and deploy digital campaigns
• Publish digital marketing content online
• Implement email marketing campaigns
• Report on the growth and analytics of campaigns
• Conduct digital market research and customer surveys to inform campaigns
• Develop and maintain functionally effective social media presence for the business.
• Analyse and report performances of all digital marketing campaigns
• Utilize strong analytical ability to evaluate end-to-end customer experience across multiple channels

Duties Categorisation and KPIs

Well before employing your digital marketer, it is wisdom to clearly set out the responsibilities and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These KPIs must cover all the 4 regions of the quadrant.

Click to continue reading https://teoaris.com/2024/02/27/how-to-recruit-a-brilliant-digital-marketer-in-nigeria/

Recruiting a brilliant digital marketer in Nigeria.

To remain relevant and competitive in today’s marketplace, virtually all businesses need some vibrant digital marketing resources to drive their digital presence initiatives.

The above statement tells how crucial a function digital marketing has become over the past few years. Though one of the newest professions around, digital marketing is one of the most evolving, and may now appear to be limitless in impact. Its impact is so much that people have asked if it’s bound to replace conventional marketing at some point. While that’s a difficult question to answer at the moment, looking at the astronomical rate digital technology has unabashedly continued to impact the world of business; one may be tempted to incline towards the affirmative.

At the worst, a business must have a strong digital marketing strategy to support and complement its traditional marketing initiatives. The way people shop and buy has changed a lot, and so have successful businesses adjusted their marketing channels to create a big room for digital marketing.

At the crux of every effective digital marketing function is a specialist, or a unit who is responsible for all activities relating to online promotion and selling the brand, products or services of an organisation - The Digital Marketer.

In this article, we’ll consider:

- What digital marketers do
- Categorisation of duties of digital marketers and their KPIs
- What to look for in a good digital marketer
- How to recruit a brilliant digital marketer in Nigeria

What Digital Marketers Do


Digital marketers drive brand awareness, generate leads for the business, and provide timely and reliable market analytics upon which a business can plan and make effective decisions on products/services, pricing and promotions. The domain of digital marketing channels includes the social media, the business’s website, search engines and emails.

The core responsibilities

Typical responsibilities of a digital marketer will include:

• Develop and implement effective digital marketing strategy for the organisation
• Optimize the business for search engine ranking based on the digital marketing strategy
• Research advertising trends and use the results to build/adjust the organisations advertisement direction and placement.
• Pre-empt competitors digital plans and pro-act to counteract them
• Research competitors marketing strategies and initiatives
• Create and deploy digital campaigns
• Publish digital marketing content online
• Implement email marketing campaigns
• Report on the growth and analytics of campaigns
• Conduct digital market research and customer surveys to inform campaigns
• Develop and maintain functionally effective social media presence for the business.
• Analyse and report performances of all digital marketing campaigns
• Utilize strong analytical ability to evaluate end-to-end customer experience across multiple channels

Duties Categorisation and KPIs

Well before employing your digital marketer, it is wisdom to clearly set out the responsibilities and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These KPIs must cover all the 4 regions of the quadrant.

Click to continue reading https://teoaris.com/2024/02/27/how-to-recruit-a-brilliant-digital-marketer-in-nigeria/

Business leaders are often concerned with how to grow their business and make them outperform the competition. While it mostly remain a tough question to answer for many, the smart ones find the answers, and by so doing, are able to perform better than the rest.

If – as it truly is – understanding what the customer wants, having effective channels for delivering what they want, and effective deployment of the key resources required for a business, are key elements for gaining competitive edge, then, having unique strategies that’ll put your business ahead of the competition is a world’s worth.

Truth be told, most businesses have strategies upon which they run their enterprise. However, running with un-researched, unarticulated, unstructured and uncoordinated plans is usually as bad as not having any. By stroke of luck, they may survive for a while, but are constantly prone to competitive vicissitudes sweeping them off – usually unexpectedly.

The practice of running an enterprise without well-articulated strategies typically stems from the avoidance of the rigours involved in developing good strategies. However, the benefits of having the right strategies far outweigh the sacrifices involved in the development process. After all, who goes into a battle without the right tactics, and expects to come out triumphant? The question then is what constitutes the right strategy in business?

What is business strategy?

Simply put, Business Strategy is a deliberately crafted plan of action that will develop a business’s competitive advantage, and compound it.

If you carefully consider the above definition, two elements are worthy of a second look. Those are: (i) Developing competitive advantage and (ii) Compounding that advantage.

The search for how to compound your competitive advantage is unarguably far more important than the competitive advantage you have at the moment. For instance, is you’re in business and you have some loyal customers at the moment, those customers are perhaps loyal to you because of the competitive advantage they consider you business to have over your competitors. To survive, grow and prosper however, your business must compound that advantage and expand beyond it – first to prevent the competition from taking of what you have already and second, to expand your market share. This is the realm of Business Strategy.

Click to continue reading https://teoaris.com/2024/02/27/business-strategy-an-indispensable-tool-for-business-excellence/

BUSINESS STRATEGY: AN INDISPENSABLE TOOL FOR BUSINESS EXCELLENCE

If – as it truly is – understanding what the customer wants, having effective channels for delivering what they want, and effective deployment of the key resources required for a business, are key elements for gaining competitive edge, then, having unique strategies that’ll put your business ahead of the competition is a world’s worth.

Truth be told, most businesses have strategies upon which they run their enterprise. However, running with un-researched, unarticulated, unstructured and uncoordinated plans is usually as bad as not having any. By stroke of luck, they may survive for a while, but are constantly prone to competitive vicissitudes sweeping them off – usually unexpectedly.

The practice of running an enterprise without well-articulated strategies typically stems from the avoidance of the rigours involved in developing good strategies. However, the benefits of having the right strategies far outweigh the sacrifices involved in the development process. After all, who goes into a battle without the right tactics, and expects to come out triumphant?


What is business strategy?

Simply put, Business Strategy is a deliberately crafted plan of action that will develop a business’s competitive advantage, and compound it.
If you carefully consider the above definition, two elements are worthy of a second look. Those are: (i) Developing competitive advantage and (ii) Compounding that advantage.

The search for how to compound your competitive advantage is unarguably far more important than the competitive advantage you have at the moment. For instance, is you’re in business and you have some loyal customers at the moment, those customers are perhaps loyal to you because of the competitive advantage they consider you business to have over your competitors. To survive, grow and prosper however, your business must compound that advantage and expand beyond it – first to prevent the competition from taking of what you have already and second, to expand your market share. This is the realm of Business Strategy.

But how do you create that competitive edge such that you are well above your competitors?

Click to continue reading, click https://teoaris.com/2024/02/27/business-strategy-an-indispensable-tool-for-business-excellence/?fbclid=IwAR2l4AHnhQLgEp4zRFRkVC2s9WI9M3mmOKQsL5I8lvFpjSXXdKMgBb5v5EY

To remain relevant and competitive in today’s marketplace, virtually all businesses need some vibrant digital marketing resources to drive their digital presence initiatives.

The above statement tells how crucial a function digital marketing has become over the past few years. Though one of the newest professions around, digital marketing is one of the most evolving, and may now appear to be limitless in impact. Its impact is so much that people have asked if it’s bound to replace conventional marketing at some point. While that’s a difficult question to answer at the moment, looking at the astronomical rate digital technology has unabashedly continued to impact the world of business; one may be tempted to incline towards the affirmative.

At the worst, a business must have a strong digital marketing strategy to support and complement its traditional marketing initiatives. The way people shop and buy has changed a lot, and so have successful businesses adjusted their marketing channels to create a big room for digital marketing.

At the crux of every effective digital marketing function is a specialist, or a unit who is responsible for all activities relating to online promotion and selling the brand, products or services of an organisation - The Digital Marketer.

In this article, we’ll consider:

- What digital marketers do
- Categorisation of duties of digital marketers and their KPIs
- What to look for in a good digital marketer
- How to recruit a brilliant digital marketer in Nigeria

What Digital Marketers Do

Digital marketers drive brand awareness, generate leads for the business, and provide timely and reliable market analytics upon which a business can plan and make effective decisions on products/services, pricing and promotions. The domain of digital marketing channels includes the social media, the business’s website, search engines and emails.

The core responsibilities

Typical responsibilities of a digital marketer will include:

• Develop and implement effective digital marketing strategy for the organisation
• Optimize the business for search engine ranking based on the digital marketing strategy
• Research advertising trends and use the results to build/adjust the organisations advertisement direction and placement.
• Pre-empt competitors digital plans and pro-act to counteract them
• Research competitors marketing strategies and initiatives
• Create and deploy digital campaigns
• Publish digital marketing content online
• Implement email marketing campaigns
• Report on the growth and analytics of campaigns
• Conduct digital market research and customer surveys to inform campaigns
• Develop and maintain functionally effective social media presence for the business.
• Analyse and report performances of all digital marketing campaigns
• Utilize strong analytical ability to evaluate end-to-end customer experience across multiple channels

Duties Categorisation and KPIs

Well before employing your digital marketer, it is wisdom to clearly set out the responsibilities and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These KPIs must cover all the 4 regions of the quadrant.



1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Management

Responsibility: Ensure the business, products or services rank highly on Search Engines Results Pages (SERPs), particularly Google.
Main KPI: Organic traffic to the website

2. Social Media Management

Manage social media by establishing a posting schedule for the company’s written and graphic content.
Main KPIs: Follows, Likes, Shares, Engagement and Leads from Social Media Channels

3. Content Marketing

Creation and posting of content relating to the business or other matters that may indirectly benefit the business.
Main KPIs: Blog Traffic, Campaign Traffic & Lead Generation

4. Email Marketing

Circulation of campaigns, newsletters and messages through emails.
Main KPIs: Email open rate, campaign click-through rate, lead-generation (conversion) rate

What to Look For in a Good Digital Marketer – The Skills Requirements

We have carefully selected below 7 skills a digital marketer must have in order to be effective and impactful. These skills range from general skills to industry-specific skills. And so, when engaging a digital marketer for potential employment, interviewers must distill the proficiency of the candidate in these competency areas in addition to personality tests (see below also) that may/should be conducted for the candidates.
Essentially, digital marketers should be assessed both on competency and personality traits.

Competency Assessment Areas

1. SEO Optimisation skills

Some of the skills you can acquire under SEO are as follows:
• Proficiency in SEO: Knowledge about technical and non-technical SEO
• Link building skills
• Ability to improve the on-page ranking

2. Social Media Marketing Skills

• Ability to develop effective social media strategies.
• Comprehensive knowledge about social media platforms and how to use them to fulfill your digital marketing objectives.
• Understanding of social media trends and new features and tools.
• Social media analytical skills. Ability to analyse data from social media platforms and use them to develop tactics.

3. Content Marketing Skills

• Ability to create high-quality, relevant, and SEO-friendly content. This skill will include effective use marketing through textual content, graphics and videos.
• Ability to research relevant keywords and smartness to cite them in the content.
• Ability to attract attention, generate interest, provoke desire and facilitate action in the content.
• Post-content engagement skills.

4. Creative Thinking and Problem Solving Skills
Developing strategies, creating good content and effectively engaging digital audience require a high level of creative thinking and problem-solving skills. A digital marketing must be able to think out of the box to predict or in some cases respond to the strategies and actions of the competitors. Also, unique content ideas that’ll give competitive edge come from creativity.

5. Effective Communication Skills

Interacting with digital audience requires a high level of communication skills. The digital marketer must ensure that the content and messages are delivered in concise and impactful manner. All content and communication materials must be aimed at attracting the interest of the audience and creating a desire for them to take positive action, within the shortest time.

6. Data Analytics Skills

The digital marketer must be skillful in the use of tools that can help him/her track various metrics such as engagement, likes, comments, website traffic and leads. These are important metrics for future planning and decision-making which can help them make effective decisions. With the advent of this data-driven mentality, we need to upgrade our digital marketing skills as well.

Some of the essential Data Analytics tools are as follows:

Google Analytics
Google Tag Manager
SQL


Recommended Personality Assessment Areas

Like, many other roles, the competence of the digital marketer may not be enough, more so now that the role digital marketers play in organisations have become so crucial. You therefore want to be sure that the potential employee aligns with the values of your organisation and he/she has the right disposition for the work and the role. The following qualities/skills are vital.

1. Integrity

Digital marketers will by virtue of their role have access to many information relating to the company, the products, the services and policies. The digital marketer should be someone who can be trusted and is circumspect, and at the same time must avoid deceptive practices, false representations and misleading claims.

2. Team-spirit

Digital marketers work with many other professionals including; visual artists, web developers, conventional marketers, customer service etc. They must therefore be good team players working for the good of the common goal.

3. Industry knowledge

Though for a smart individual – especially if a good team player - industry knowledge can be gained in a little time, when you want your digital marketer to hit the ground running, it’s important to have someone who’s got a fair knowledge of the industry and its dynamism. The experience and portfolio of the candidate may be a good reference for this.

4. Organisational skills
Must be organised and have excellent planning abilities. Digital marketing involves a lot of planning for adverts, campaigns and engagements.

5. Research Skills and Teach-ability

As digital marketing evolves, the tools, methods and platforms evolve too. It’s therefore important that digital marketers are research-oriented. He must be open to learning and unlearning based on what works now, and what will work in the future. They must be willing to learning from knowledgeable colleagues and veritable information from the internet.


Tips for Interviews of Digital Marketers

Below are few tips on what you may test for while recruiting a digital marketer. This list is by no means exhaustive but it is decent enough to give you a good start.

i. Test for cognitive skills - Ability to think out of the box. Critical thinking and problem solving abilities.
ii. Test for understanding of digital marketing field – Basic and advanced terms. How to develop and implement digital marketing strategies. Understanding of the peculiarities of various platforms open to digital marketing. Test for current trends in digital marketing.
iii. Test for digital advertising skills.
iv. Check portfolio – How have the candidates done with the brand they have managed before or currently managing?
v. Test for SEO skills. How grounded is the candidate in on-page and off-page SEO. Knowledge of keyword research and keyword use. Use of directories.
vi. Test content creation skills. Can the candidate develop full blogs? Knowledge of infographics and visual enthusiasm.
vii. Check for the candidate’s social media presence and engagements.
viii. Test for understanding on digital sales process. Test for understanding of sales funnel.
ix. Test for ability to engage audience. Test for how to use and leverage customer feedback.
x. Test personality. Test for preferred work environment, preferred management style and other behavioral matters.
Need more details?

An article of Teoaris Consulting.

Teoaris Consulting is a Recruitment and Business Consulting Firm in Consultant in Lagos, Nigeria. Visit [url]www.teoaris.com [/url]for more blogs.

Recruiting a brilliant digital marketer in Nigeria.

To remain relevant and competitive in today’s marketplace, virtually all businesses need some vibrant digital marketing resources to drive their digital presence initiatives.

The above statement tells how crucial a function digital marketing has become over the past few years. Though one of the newest professions around, digital marketing is one of the most evolving, and may now appear to be limitless in impact. Its impact is so much that people have asked if it’s bound to replace conventional marketing at some point. While that’s a difficult question to answer at the moment, looking at the astronomical rate digital technology has unabashedly continued to impact the world of business; one may be tempted to incline towards the affirmative.

At the worst, a business must have a strong digital marketing strategy to support and complement its traditional marketing initiatives. The way people shop and buy has changed a lot, and so have successful businesses adjusted their marketing channels to create a big room for digital marketing.

At the crux of every effective digital marketing function is a specialist, or a unit who is responsible for all activities relating to online promotion and selling the brand, products or services of an organisation - The Digital Marketer.

In this article, we’ll consider:

- What digital marketers do
- Categorisation of duties of digital marketers and their KPIs
- What to look for in a good digital marketer
- How to recruit a brilliant digital marketer in Nigeria

What Digital Marketers Do

Digital marketers drive brand awareness, generate leads for the business, and provide timely and reliable market analytics upon which a business can plan and make effective decisions on products/services, pricing and promotions. The domain of digital marketing channels includes the social media, the business’s website, search engines and emails.

The core responsibilities

Typical responsibilities of a digital marketer will include:

• Develop and implement effective digital marketing strategy for the organisation
• Optimize the business for search engine ranking based on the digital marketing strategy
• Research advertising trends and use the results to build/adjust the organisations advertisement direction and placement.
• Pre-empt competitors digital plans and pro-act to counteract them
• Research competitors marketing strategies and initiatives
• Create and deploy digital campaigns
• Publish digital marketing content online
• Implement email marketing campaigns
• Report on the growth and analytics of campaigns
• Conduct digital market research and customer surveys to inform campaigns
• Develop and maintain functionally effective social media presence for the business.
• Analyse and report performances of all digital marketing campaigns
• Utilize strong analytical ability to evaluate end-to-end customer experience across multiple channels

Duties Categorisation and KPIs

Well before employing your digital marketer, it is wisdom to clearly set out the responsibilities and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These KPIs must cover all the 4 regions of the quadrant.



1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Management

Responsibility: Ensure the business, products or services rank highly on Search Engines Results Pages (SERPs), particularly Google.
Main KPI: Organic traffic to the website

2. Social Media Management

Manage social media by establishing a posting schedule for the company’s written and graphic content.
Main KPIs: Follows, Likes, Shares, Engagement and Leads from Social Media Channels

3. Content Marketing

Creation and posting of content relating to the business or other matters that may indirectly benefit the business.
Main KPIs: Blog Traffic, Campaign Traffic & Lead Generation

4. Email Marketing

Circulation of campaigns, newsletters and messages through emails.
Main KPIs: Email open rate, campaign click-through rate, lead-generation (conversion) rate

What to Look For in a Good Digital Marketer – The Skills Requirements

We have carefully selected below 7 skills a digital marketer must have in order to be effective and impactful. These skills range from general skills to industry-specific skills. And so, when engaging a digital marketer for potential employment, interviewers must distill the proficiency of the candidate in these competency areas in addition to personality tests (see below also) that may/should be conducted for the candidates.
Essentially, digital marketers should be assessed both on competency and personality traits.

Competency Assessment Areas

1. SEO Optimisation skills

Some of the skills you can acquire under SEO are as follows:
• Proficiency in SEO: Knowledge about technical and non-technical SEO
• Link building skills
• Ability to improve the on-page ranking

2. Social Media Marketing Skills

• Ability to develop effective social media strategies.
• Comprehensive knowledge about social media platforms and how to use them to fulfill your digital marketing objectives.
• Understanding of social media trends and new features and tools.
• Social media analytical skills. Ability to analyse data from social media platforms and use them to develop tactics.

3. Content Marketing Skills

• Ability to create high-quality, relevant, and SEO-friendly content. This skill will include effective use marketing through textual content, graphics and videos.
• Ability to research relevant keywords and smartness to cite them in the content.
• Ability to attract attention, generate interest, provoke desire and facilitate action in the content.
• Post-content engagement skills.

4. Creative Thinking and Problem Solving Skills
Developing strategies, creating good content and effectively engaging digital audience require a high level of creative thinking and problem-solving skills. A digital marketing must be able to think out of the box to predict or in some cases respond to the strategies and actions of the competitors. Also, unique content ideas that’ll give competitive edge come from creativity.

5. Effective Communication Skills

Interacting with digital audience requires a high level of communication skills. The digital marketer must ensure that the content and messages are delivered in concise and impactful manner. All content and communication materials must be aimed at attracting the interest of the audience and creating a desire for them to take positive action, within the shortest time.

6. Data Analytics Skills

The digital marketer must be skillful in the use of tools that can help him/her track various metrics such as engagement, likes, comments, website traffic and leads. These are important metrics for future planning and decision-making which can help them make effective decisions. With the advent of this data-driven mentality, we need to upgrade our digital marketing skills as well.

Some of the essential Data Analytics tools are as follows:

Google Analytics
Google Tag Manager
SQL


Recommended Personality Assessment Areas

Like, many other roles, the competence of the digital marketer may not be enough, more so now that the role digital marketers play in organisations have become so crucial. You therefore want to be sure that the potential employee aligns with the values of your organisation and he/she has the right disposition for the work and the role. The following qualities/skills are vital.

1. Integrity

Digital marketers will by virtue of their role have access to many information relating to the company, the products, the services and policies. The digital marketer should be someone who can be trusted and is circumspect, and at the same time must avoid deceptive practices, false representations and misleading claims.

2. Team-spirit

Digital marketers work with many other professionals including; visual artists, web developers, conventional marketers, customer service etc. They must therefore be good team players working for the good of the common goal.

3. Industry knowledge

Though for a smart individual – especially if a good team player - industry knowledge can be gained in a little time, when you want your digital marketer to hit the ground running, it’s important to have someone who’s got a fair knowledge of the industry and its dynamism. The experience and portfolio of the candidate may be a good reference for this.

4. Organisational skills
Must be organised and have excellent planning abilities. Digital marketing involves a lot of planning for adverts, campaigns and engagements.

5. Research Skills and Teach-ability

As digital marketing evolves, the tools, methods and platforms evolve too. It’s therefore important that digital marketers are research-oriented. He must be open to learning and unlearning based on what works now, and what will work in the future. They must be willing to learning from knowledgeable colleagues and veritable information from the internet.


Tips for Interviews of Digital Marketers

Below are few tips on what you may test for while recruiting a digital marketer. This list is by no means exhaustive but it is decent enough to give you a good start.

i. Test for cognitive skills - Ability to think out of the box. Critical thinking and problem solving abilities.
ii. Test for understanding of digital marketing field – Basic and advanced terms. How to develop and implement digital marketing strategies. Understanding of the peculiarities of various platforms open to digital marketing. Test for current trends in digital marketing.
iii. Test for digital advertising skills.
iv. Check portfolio – How have the candidates done with the brand they have managed before or currently managing?
v. Test for SEO skills. How grounded is the candidate in on-page and off-page SEO. Knowledge of keyword research and keyword use. Use of directories.
vi. Test content creation skills. Can the candidate develop full blogs? Knowledge of infographics and visual enthusiasm.
vii. Check for the candidate’s social media presence and engagements.
viii. Test for understanding on digital sales process. Test for understanding of sales funnel.
ix. Test for ability to engage audience. Test for how to use and leverage customer feedback.
x. Test personality. Test for preferred work environment, preferred management style and other behavioral matters.
Need more details?

An article of Teoaris Consulting.

Teoaris Consulting is a Recruitment and Business Consulting Firm in Consultant in Lagos, Nigeria. Visit www.teoaris.com for more blogs.