4 Critical Factors Affecting Businesses in Nigeria and the Solution.

In a previous post, we highlighted that small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) have contributed about 48% of the national GDP in the last five years.

Also, they account for about 50% of industrial jobs and nearly 90% of the manufacturing sector, in terms of number of businesses, with a total of 17.4million.

These statistics are based on a report by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics as shared by PWC.

Despite this, there are several factors that greatly influence the success of doing business in an economic landscape like Nigeria, particularly for small scale businesses.

Let’s briefly talk about 4 of them and share simple ways to tackle them.

1) Marketing.

A proper marketing plan with a strong message is critical to the success of every kind of business, no matter where you are in the world.

However, many small business owners in Nigeria don’t realize this. Many think all that is required is to “rent a space, get my goods and display them for people to come and buy.”

This is simply building a business on hope (and maybe prayer) - it does not work.

You need to have a proper marketing plan which will include your message and your location; these two are very critical.

A proper marketing plan will ensure the message is saying what service or product the business offers clearly, and how it can help customers get what they want. The location must be where people (traffic) who need the service will see the message and buy the goods.

2) Government Regulations

Like every other government, the Nigerian government has several regulations guiding business operations. There are tariffs to pay, registration fees, union fees, tax levies and even ‘area collections’ for those who own physical businesses.

You need to know these different regulations and requirements to avoid officials showing up at your business location unannounced and shutting you down. The Corporate Affairs Commission has the requirements for setting up a regulated business on their website.

3) Power (Electricity)

There is no Nigerian, or no one living or doing business in Nigeria who doesn’t know this.. Power is a huge factor affecting many businesses and business owners in Nigeria, including large corporations.

Simple solutions include having a working Generator and Inverter to save you from expected power outages.

?4) Money

This is the final but most critical factor we’ll highlight - every business needs money to keep operating and to expand. However, life could happen at any time; and those moments could impact the finances of a business (owner), leaving it unable to keep operating, or expand as the case may be.

The simple and easy solution is to get financial aid from a credible financial institution such as LAPO Microfinance Bank.

LAPO MfB has an SME Loan offering which supports small businesses with a credit facility as much as N50 million without the requirement of a collateral.

You can learn more here: https://www.lapo-nigeria.org/loans/sme

It is important as a business person to know the factors which can influence your business growth and survival. If a business person can negotiate these factors via the solutions we have proposed, then the business stands a huge chance of succeeding if you answer 1 (One) simple question.

We shared what that question is in this post: (https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6916772272666030080)

We hope this helps?

Let us know in the comments section.