Some days ago, I had a chat with a lady who was selling her small business due to operational issues. 90% of SMEs fail due to these issues & need help, yet those who can help focus on large businesses who can pay. I'll share tips to get help for your SME by 9am if I see interest.
Some of the biggest challenges with SMEs include financial mgt, regulation (e.g. NAFDAC), tax (many companies won't work with you if you don't have a TCC), risk assessment and planning, access to funds/capital, etc. Yet SMEs overlook these things, and as a result, remain small.
How do I mean? No matter how solid your business is, there are some sizes of transactions you may never be able to get if you don't have tax clearance, or if you produce food/pharma items, you may never be able to sell in some stores if you don't have NAFDAC.
For those looking for funds, you may never be able to access investors if you don't have a solid financial record of your business. Now let's look inward at your operations, depending on the type of business you run, you may experience periodic cashflow issues. Cash is king.
One common cause of this is that your inflows are lower than your outflows, e.g. your customers owe you for longer periods than you are allowed to owe your suppliers, so no cash, even though you are making sales. Or your transaction frequency is not as high as your expenses.
This is part of the financial (cashflow) planning issues. One way to solve this is to structure your business in a way that you agree on SLAs with suppliers for your payment cycles to align with your customers' payment cycle. There are other ways, but that is an example.
What often separates small businesses from the big ones is that the big ones identify the importance of these challenges and hire professionals or consultants who solve these issues & as a result better position them for continuous opportunities and growth.
Now the challenge is that as a small business, you can't afford these services or skills. But there are platforms that help you get help from affordable service providers, regulators and provide you with access to these global standards. One of such platform is @MsmeStandards
The platform provides you the opportunity to do a self-assessment compliance of your business with internal and external controls, see the gaps, and then get help from professional service providers to bridge the gaps. And there are several services that you have access to.
The broad categories of the services are Continuous Improvement, Information & Communication, Risk Assessment, Control Activities and Regulatory Compliance, others are training, media-related services, business and financial planning, etc.
It also gives you access to potential funders and donors who trust the platform for compliant MSMEs that they can fund. The platform is powered by Business Action Against Corruption (BAAC) - a CBi Project
cbinigeria.com/baac/. To register, simply click msmestandards.com/register
cbinigeria.com/baac/. To register, simply click msmestandards.com/register
Now you don't have to experience extra stress of sourcing for help from service providers better suited for large businesses. You can get help, funding and better position your business for compliance to standards through the @MsmeStandards platform. End.
