SME Entrepreneur Risk Planning
Being an entrepreneur is not so much different as working as an employee for an organization. A key skill or competence that you need to exc...
Being an entrepreneur is not so much different as working as an employee for an organization. A key skill or competence that you need to excel is good "time management". I like to call it "time management for proper risk mitigation" since the Nigerian local context is rife with lots of "unexpected events" that can run down any good business.For instance, you are running a simple "online/web shopping business". My advice is usually to tackle your "sources" of frustration in advance. Use the "Not Urgent- But Important" time management quadrant very effectively.
Some of the major sources of crisis are : 1. Bank transfers or payment gateways delays 2. ISP network down times 3.Delivery/Logistics/Shipping challenges 4. Hosting Providers/Platform Provides down times 5.Electricity/Power failure duration and the list goes on and on. Then you have the "medium risk" ones like 1. Customer support 2. Fault resolution 3. Web/App Developers 4.Order fulfillment Etc. You need to put your "processes and systems" in place ahead of time, so that you don't find yourself operating in the "crises zones" in your small business.
Imagine for instance, that you have paid your supplier, but your payment is "hanging" due to your Bank's technical challenge. Or your Customers have placed an order but your Logistics or Delivery company is facing problems getting your products to your clients. That's where due diligence must come into play. You need to map out all the connecting parts of your value chain on a "mind map" , then deliberately think on "where things could go wrong".
The major sources would be those that are "customer impacting", right? Then assign Risk/QoS(quality of service) scores or weightings. Then invest more in "service providers" who can provide you with the appropriate "QoS" or service-level for those with higher risk weightings. You can always find "workarounds" for the "minor" risk scores. My advice is to outsource completely to "cloud service providers" who can provide end-to-end services for all your "core/critical" web-related operations; leaving you to handle the "simple" parts of your business like resolving customer queries and the like.
If your "online business" is NOT as easy as checking your email or responding to a simple email, you might be running a "contraption of complexities" and excess overheads not good for your SME (small and medium enterprise) "cash-flows".
Some of the major sources of crisis are : 1. Bank transfers or payment gateways delays 2. ISP network down times 3.Delivery/Logistics/Shipping challenges 4. Hosting Providers/Platform Provides down times 5.Electricity/Power failure duration and the list goes on and on. Then you have the "medium risk" ones like 1. Customer support 2. Fault resolution 3. Web/App Developers 4.Order fulfillment Etc. You need to put your "processes and systems" in place ahead of time, so that you don't find yourself operating in the "crises zones" in your small business.
Imagine for instance, that you have paid your supplier, but your payment is "hanging" due to your Bank's technical challenge. Or your Customers have placed an order but your Logistics or Delivery company is facing problems getting your products to your clients. That's where due diligence must come into play. You need to map out all the connecting parts of your value chain on a "mind map" , then deliberately think on "where things could go wrong".
The major sources would be those that are "customer impacting", right? Then assign Risk/QoS(quality of service) scores or weightings. Then invest more in "service providers" who can provide you with the appropriate "QoS" or service-level for those with higher risk weightings. You can always find "workarounds" for the "minor" risk scores. My advice is to outsource completely to "cloud service providers" who can provide end-to-end services for all your "core/critical" web-related operations; leaving you to handle the "simple" parts of your business like resolving customer queries and the like.
If your "online business" is NOT as easy as checking your email or responding to a simple email, you might be running a "contraption of complexities" and excess overheads not good for your SME (small and medium enterprise) "cash-flows".