The Sunday Mail
Entrepreneurship
Matters
Dr Kudzanai Vere
An entrepreneur is a person whose acts of innovation gives birth to a unique and sustainable business entity. The reason why we don’t have many successful businesses in Africa and Zimbabwe in particular is failure to incubate our businesses.
According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, the word incubate means to sit on (eggs) so as to hatch by the warmth of the body, or to maintain (something, such as an embryo or a chemically active system) under conditions favourable for hatching, development, or reaction.
In business, we have heard of business incubation whereby startups get assistance financially and otherwise until they are fully fledged to stand on their own feet. That’s another form of incubation where you get external assistance to start and boost your business. The incubation I am talking about in this article is the one you provide to your own business. This is more of internal than external.
Entrepreneurs are known for defending their business ideas and concepts, bearing all the risks of starting up and running such a business. It is incumbent upon every entrepreneur to make sure they give the necessary support to their business until such a time when it is fully grown. Ordinarily, chickens lay on their own eggs for a certain period of time making sure that they get the necessary warmth while securing them from external predators with the supreme aim of getting them hatched. The same concept applies in the business environment.
How can one incubate their business?
In 2015, we employed a manager we gave chargeship over our newly found wholesale business. We backed off to concentrate on some of our other entrepreneurship endeavours as we had entrusted this manager to steer the business forward. To say the least, that strategy threw us on the ground, we got drenched in debts, had sour relationships with customers and suppliers alike. We had failed to incubate our business.
We began to realise that, just like the broody hen, businesses need the owner’s warmth, guidance and control during its infancy. You just need to be there hands on until it is actually hatched out of its shell. Don’t make the mistake we made of prematurely appointing a lieutenant and giving them every form of power over the business.
Have a business operating system in place (BOS)
A business operating system refers to a standard enterprise wide collection of processes and procedures that governs the way a business operates. It spells out how internal and external business processes are carried out. BOS is your own unique way of carrying own your business, how it operates, goes to the market, connects with customers, suppliers, Government agencies and its employees.
Without a standard business operating system, it will be difficult and almost impossible to succeed in running your business. In 2016, the major reason for the downfall was, we had entrusted the manager with coming up with an operating system we didn’t find time to check on.
Monitor your BOS as you intimate with the business
Just like the eggs that require sufficient warmth for hatching to take place, so is your business. It requires warmth in the form of your presence. As the master strategist, your presence makes the work even easier for your employees. You provide the strategic direction for its growth. The business will eventually mature and be able to stand alone in the fullness of time.
Protect your business from the harsh external environment. That is the reason why women get at least three months maternity leave. They know that once a child is born, it should have some time under the mother’s tender hands before being exposed to the maid.
You don’t just leave your baby with the maid right from day one. You need to breast feed it and provide the necessary motherly care for at least three months. The same applies to your business. Mind you, this is your business. You didn’t start it for someone else, but for your own benefit. That’s your legacy. There can be arguments to the contrary but the fact still remains. Incubate your business.
Check on the functionality of every aspect of it. Determine the time that should be taken to complete a transaction and the maximum permissible number of customers that should be seen in a queue. All these are efforts to make your entrepreneurship flourish beyond today and tomorrow.
Put internal controls
The Turnbull Report (1999) defined internal control and its scope as policies, processes, tasks, behaviours and other aspects of an organisation that taken together facilitate effective operation by enabling it to respond in an appropriate manner to significant business, operational, financial, compliance and other risks to achieve its objectives. This includes safeguarding of assets and ensuring that liabilities are identified and managed.
We all know the fragility of eggs that if anything falls on it — it breaks. Business needs protection from internal and external factors. Oftentimes when employees operate unmonitored, they extort your sales revenue depriving you even of the cost of sales. There are also instances where connivance and conspiracies happen all aimed at destroying your business. So incubating your business becomes paramount.
The incubation process allows the chick inside to grow. Your upcoming business likewise needs some form of protection in order to grow. As you keep your business under self guard, it can develop into a fully-fledged business.
Monitor and evaluate your systems, strategy and controls
It is during this incubation stage that you set the tone of your organisation going forward. Satisfy yourself of the functionalities of the systems, strategy and controls in place. The overall aim of any business and entrepreneurship endeavour is to contribute to the socio economic cause while at the same time making a profit.
Any system, strategy and control that’s put in place must assist the organisation achieve it’s overall objectives. The main aim of incubation in chickens is to hatch and eggs and bring out life from them. The same concept applies in the business scenario. We want a business that can grow and sustain itself as it contributes to overall growth of its local and national economy.
It’s one thing to have a strategy and a system and it’s another thing to make sure they are talking to each other and giving out the desired results. A number of institutions fail not because they do not have systems in place but because they failed to do the checks and balances as required.
Conclusion
It is imperative that we incubate and nurture our businesses until such a time they can stand on their own feet. Do not prematurely appoint a lieutenant to superintendent over your business. That’s the greatest business mistake you can make. Be hands on and provide the necessary owner support needed.
The writer Dr Kudzanai Vere, the founder of Kudfort, Tengesa Online, Premium Business Network International and the Institute of Entrepreneurs Zimbabwe is an entrepreneur, author and transformational speaker in the areas of entrepreneurship and personal development. Dr Vere has trained more than 5 000 entrepreneurs globally in the areas of innovation, organisation development, practical business management and ideation. You can contact him on +263719592232 or email [email protected]
