What small business must do as change unfolds

Last week, I discussed some strategies that proactive MSMEs should be executing as the nation grinds through what some say are the teething problems of an uncertain change agenda that may change Nigeria as we currently know it. Although there is no agreement on the direction the change may take Nigeria, most people reading recent events in the country are at best uncertain of the future, especially as insecurity gets diversified to killings for land. While this uncertainty reigns, the Small Business Community must be encouraged to ride the current and expected tide with success.

There is no reliable data on Nigeria’s rate of unemployment. Suffice it to say that it is high and rising. Many do not even see why anyone should bother with precise figures on the scourge. To such people, it makes little sense to pursue a meteor of the type the Nigerian unemployment problem has become, which is moving so fast. Moreover, there’s no solution in sight, government rhetorics notwithstanding.

Inflation has started a northward journey and now in the double digits for understandable and not yet abating reasons. Nigerians have never been more insecure nor miles apart from each other. Not only are they running from official terrorists in the name of Boko Haram, they are now being sensitised to brace up for a greater catastrophe – the rapidly growing and unchallenged killing of innocent people by herdsmen on the prowl to seize other people’s lands. With the seeming limited capacity of security agencies to protect the people, self-help will soon be the order of the day. This will surely complicate the job of the federal government with regard to the protection of its citizens. Evidently, the learning curve for the fruits of the change agenda is likely to elongate. The Small Business Community must therefore look inwards and preoccupy itself with regenerative activities to keep hope alive. Our MSMEs must, like the wise snail in the dry season, recoil and go into their shells and hibernate, during what is likely to be a long period of economic, political, and social upheaval.

In such a period, the Small Business Community would do well to downsize unwarranted financial exposure, especially on commercial terms. There is no need for adventures in new loan facilities when products are slow on the shelf. A supplier recently told me how devastated he was when he went to collect debt owed him by one of his customers. It is traditional in many trades to supply goods on credit to customers who pay at a future date. The customer had, of late, been telling him a lot of stories to justify his inability to live up to the payment agreement for the goods supplied to him. On this particular day, the supplier went with all venom to collect his money. He had no doubt the customer had been “making turnover” with his capital – a term meaning that the customer has sold the goods, refused to pay him and now buys from other people using the money.

He was shocked when he got there and saw that the goods he supplied were still sitting nicely on the shelf of his customer. At first he was sure his prediction of the customer making turnover with his money had turned out right. So he went to the shelf, picked up a carton of the product to make assurance doubly sure that those items were not his. Lo and behold, the carton bore his marks and so did many other cartons in the inner part of the store. The goods were exactly the ones he supplied. They have not been sold and not many people were enthusiastic to buy them, even at reduced prices. His customer then had a hard time consoling the supplier and insisting that the end has not come as the supplier practically wept.

So everything is slow and it is time to be bearish. Stay off unwarranted credit facilities to avoid damaging your credit records and being excluded from such facilities when the good times come back. This is not the time for the acquisition of credit facilities in as many banks as are willing to give us. It is rather time to keep our houses in order – make ourselves attractive to the banks as a maiden to her suitor- pay down on superfluous credit.

Many creative entrepreneurs and small businesses are doing great things in their small corners but not many people know about them or their products and services. They do not appreciate the benefits of advertising and publicity. Indeed, they consider it wasteful. Unfortunately, many bright ideas have been allowed to die under the weight of this attitude to the value of information, both to the giver and the receiver. The time has come for the Small Business Community to embrace the culture of advertising. Let the world know you and what you do.

And advertising does not have to be elaborate and expensive. The social media is a cost cutter and there should be no excuse for any of us in the Small Business Community to be ignorant of it. We must embrace the computer and the social media. The use of all available media elements – website, online portals and such media – should form part of our developmental objectives. They save costs and offer even greater mileage in advertising and publicity. As we cut costs in some areas, we should deploy the savings to enhance public awareness of who we are and what we do.

Business development should be a proper preoccupation at times like these. Research and development are critical to business growth and they are resource intensive. Within reasonable limits of resource availability, business development should get good attention in these low times. We should try and understand more deeply the constituents of our clientele. In the days ahead, passing knowledge of customers will no longer suffice. As resources get scarcer, King Customer gets more elevated in the high pedestal of his kingdom. Proactive MSMEs should use this time to get into the inner sanctuaries of their customers’ business machinery, and seek to understand some specific features, such as the seasonality of their trade, if any, skill set and such. This information will be handy as big business happens on the dawn of the change we expect.

Above all, members of the Small Business Community must invest in the identification of the niches appropriate to their individual endowments. Doing what everybody does is often a sure way to business failure. We should spend some of our energy in creating our own Blue Oceans of prosperity. There are many new and emerging areas of business opportunity that MSMEs should explore, including agriculture – certainly not land grabbing disguised as cattle raring agriculture. Luckily, it has now been established by some prominent Nigerians that the destructive cattle raerers are non-Nigerians. The imperialists promoting their cause and asking Nigeria to congratulate them with land allocation must now apologize for misleading the country. Nigeria must avoid regressive practices that have the potential to unravel our fragile unity. The adoption of irrigation and mechanisms that enable us to bring more land into use in different geographical areas is a better strategy.

Finally, a cursory look at the Lagos landscape for instance shows a sprouting of event centres and party tents, pointing to a food and entertainment industry ready to go. There are also many schools signalling that it is time to have our own home-made school supplies. We recognize the debilitating infrastructure deficit but the opportunities are still there. Find your niche.

 

Emeka Osuji