For most, the biggest worry is how do I manage a business when I am not there!? How do I ensure things move smoothly without me having to be there?
I know this has been one of the biggest challenges for those outside the country wanting to start something back home or those abroad running businesses here and finding it had to manage them effectively-remotely .
We have a few clients abroad with one of them being in the UK. He runs a logistics company back home and it's doing pretty well. It's working in an organized manner and continues to grow.
The company has three trailer trucks that provide transport services and is planning on purchasing a 4th. Each of the trucks makes between Shs 2-5 million a week depending on the amount of work available.
The three collectively make about Shs 8-20 million a month depending on the available work.
His company runs an office of two staff, an admin and a cashier. Each truck has a driver and turn man and in total those are 8 employees. So how does he manage?
The first thing we did was put trackers on the trucks that monitor their movements and fuel.
So with this he can know the trucks's whereabouts and distance travelled which we can use to estimate income generated. The drivers all report to him but also report to the administrators.
The administrators reports to him and cashier reports to the admin and to him directly.
Our work is offer tax support that's filing, planning and also accounting support that's working with the office to align their books and offer any other form of management support services like drafting resolutions, partnership agreements whenever there's need.
We directly report to him writing a monthly report and also communicate frequently by email and phone.
None of the workers report to us but they account to us. He has two bank accounts, one that receives all payments and one that's used to operational expenses.
The operations account never hold more than Shs 4 million at any given point and is managed by the admin and cashier, they can spend that money which ever they seem reasonable as long as they can account and justify the expenditure .
The operational account is meant to manage small operational expenses and it's topped up every time money reduces.
He manages the other account on line and has access to both accounts to monitor what's going on.
We audit both accounts and office expenses to ensure money is being used right. So this kind of structure has made it hard for power to be concentrated in one corner, it's spread out.
This creates checks and balances at every corner of operation. No single individual should have a lot of power to abuse the business or it's resource like money heavily. He comes around twice every year personally to see what's on ground.
The only way to build a business that works in your absence is building a structure that takes ultimate power away from the person and spreads it around a system.
This way even when a business owner dies, the business keeps running normally. Systems however are hard to build around small business as they are effective when power is spread across many people.
Jaluum Herberts Luwizza is a Speaker,Writer and Business Columnist with the Nile Post.He is also a Business Consultant at YOUNG TREP East Africa's No.1 Business Management and Consultancy firm that helps people start and grow profitable businesses.
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