Risk & reward. Thabani Zulu
miss potential risks.
I will not deal with each risk here, because the strategies to manage them will vary from business to business and from person to person. Some of us are dangerous risk takers and will forge ahead despite the risk exposure. Although the accountant in me discourages that, I am reminded of what one of my friends said to me on this issue: “If you want to succeed in business, get rid of your accountant or risk manager. He will scare you sufficiently for you to want to do nothing eventually!” So take what I am saying with a pinch of salt, but please, at least know what risks you are up against before you take a decision on how to deal with them.
Prevention
Treatment, as I indicated earlier, can be preventive. As the doctors say, “Prevention is better than cure”, and the same principle applies in business. You want to put systems in place to ensure that the risk is prevented, because you will spend twice as much energy and resources to cure the problem if it materialises. Install burglar gates and alarms in your warehouse. Fit the company vehicles with immobilisers. Draw up Human Resources policies to instruct your employees on how you want things to be done. Invest in accounting and costing packages to ensure that the product costs are accurate and you do not sell at a loss. In other words, prevent the risks from happening.
Detection
Prevention systems are not a foolproof guarantee that risks will not occur, so you want to go to the next level of risk management – detection. You want to have systems in place to inform you that you have been hit. There is no point in going on with business as usual when things are seriously wrong in the heart of your business. You are losing food stock every day because your employees are stealing it. Your vehicles are travelling everywhere, costing you petrol and maintenance, but not bringing in any money. You want to be able to detect these things early enough, so your systems must allow for that. The stock must be counted frequently. The logbooks for the vehicles must be filled in, signed and checked. You or your senior people or yourself must contact the clients regularly to check whether they are happy with your service. Mechanisms to inform you that something is wrong must be put in place and applied diligently.
Correction
Believe it or not, both prevention and detection mechanisms may not be enough to ensure that the risk is being effectively managed. Sometimes they may be so costly that you want to minimise them and place more emphasis on corrective mechanisms. For example, the fact that I have an anti-hijack device, an immobiliser and a tracker in my car does not offer absolute protection against its being stolen or a guarantee that it will be recovered. The risk is still there – it may have been minimised, but it is still there. You may just want to go for a corrective control mechanism, one that suggests that you have been hit and places you in the same situation you were in before the risk occurred. In this case, just get insurance. You may also take out legal cover for potential litigation by suppliers and customers, and so on.
The risk of not managing risks
I want to drum this point home as much as I can. Not managing risks is risky in itself. It is negligent and not businesslike. You are exposing your business to unwanted, unpleasant surprises.
You are putting yourself and your employees in a fire-fighting mode and, believe me, you will be putting out fires for the rest of your life until you get this right.
The rest of this book is premised on effective risk management. In the chapters that follow, I propose solutions for managing fundamental risks that may cause your business not to grow as fast as you want or, at worst, to collapse. We will discuss issues of finance, employment, administration, competition and many others. All have risks associated with them that you need to manage. I would like you to follow me through this material and try to correct the mistakes before you make them. This will make your business thrive!
Chapter 3
Deciding on your business
Am I made for this?
Do I have the time?
What business must I start?
Does this business have a market?
What about the competition?
Will I make money doing this?
Setting up a business is not easy. It requires a lot of planning, financial resources and emotional investment. By the time you realise that you have entered into a wrong venture, it may be too late. Therefore, it is critical that you make the right choice when deciding on a business venture. Be careful not to be “a Jack of all trades”, and venture into everything at the risk of not being seen as a specialist, and failing to attract a specific market. There is a dangerous surge in South Africa of companies being registered that purport to be able to do everything, such as ABC Enterprise CC selling stationery, road construction, building, catering services, facilitation and training. The old adage “Jack of all trades, master of none” still holds true. There are many ventures that you can enter into, for example:
1 property development;
2 catering;
3 maize production;
4 security; or
5 business consulting.
In this chapter, I want us to explore some of the critical factors that you should take into consideration before deciding which business to enter into.
Your personal aspirations
In this discussion, it is important to realise upfront that you may not be alone in the business you intend starting. We will look at this issue in more detail in Chapter 5: Choosing your partners. But whether you are alone or in a group, the sum total of “you” must possess the attributes that we will discuss in this section.
Most businesses fail because of the owner or owners. They set it up because they believed it would be profitable, and ignored the fact that they would have to run it to profitability. Perhaps it is not in line with their interests, they lack the time and energy to manage it, and they generally find it “boring” to run. Running your own business takes up more time than being employed, therefore you need to ask yourself if you have the time. If you don’t, do not bother getting into business, because it simply will not work. It will take you to make your business survive and succeed.
One of my acquaintances decided to take the leap and resign from work to start a business. What transpired later were his fundamental reasons for taking such a step. He was angry with his employer and thought he was underpaid and not being promoted to a position of power. His motivations were power and greed. He did not have the energy, in fact he was simply too lazy to run a business, even though he wanted to own one. All he prided himself on was that he had a business of his own and could produce proof of this in the form of business cards and company profiles. That gave him the glory, but it was short-lived.
Area of interest
Choose an area that you have a passion for and enjoy engaging in. Do not get into agriculture if you find it too dirty and hope you will employ a manager to run the business for you. Your hands must get dirty. After all, it is your business!
Have you noticed how successful you become in areas that really interest you? As a schoolboy I used to know a song by heart from the day it was released, yet never managed to memorise significant history dates and events. My history marks were abysmal, but my musical knowledge was superb! That was my area of interest, and it became my area of excellence. Business is not so dissimilar. You become great and successful at what you enjoy waking up in the morning to do. Your passion becomes easy to spot and will gain you the support of clients and other business associates.
Skills
Choose a business that you have the skill to manage as an individual or as a collective. We will discuss choosing partners in Chapter 5, but do not get into a business that you have no knowledge of. You will be abused by your business associates; you will not know what decisions