Running a business in Nigeria is one daring task a lot of people do not want to venture into because of the extra problems associated with the journey.
Extra problems?
Timi is close friend of mine, business minded and a resolute-to-purpose kind of person. Timi owns a mini shopping mall (Stop and Shop) somewhere in the heart of Lagos. Business is very rife in the location as sales improve almost every other year. Stop and Shop has a record growth and enjoys a fantastic credit days period from suppliers and distributors. The business has been profitable over the years and Timi has been planning to grow horizontally by branching off.
Stop and Shop regularly holds a minimum stock level as one of the brand promises of the business is to “always be in stock of everything and anything”. One faithful day by a random act of trying to change the position of goods in the warehouse, it was discovered there was a box carrying stones beneath the merchandise as the box fell. Upon further investigation, stock worth over N20 million was missing from the warehouse and these boxes were replaced with stones and there was a 7 man syndicate carrying out these heinous crimes on the business. Timi ended up in the hospital and upon discharge, Stop and Shop was sold almost within 2 months of this discovery. Timi has since left the shores of Africa.
Duke, another business minded friend, owns a popular hangout spot and lounge (“Lode Lounge”) in the heart of Lekki, grilling the best chicken and fish barbecue for clients. Lode stocks a lot of fish, white meat (chicken, turkey) irish potatoes, vegetables e.t.c. Duke after stated noticing a decline in both the sales and the profit figures put in extra controls in the freezing room as he suspected pilfering of the stocked items.
Even with the extra controls, sales and profit figures did not improve. Duke always had a sales and profit projection based on the stock received but all the numbers were way below the expected projections. One faithful day, after Lode received frozen chicken supply from his suppliers (usually packed in 15kg bags), the stock was loaded into the freezing room as is the usual practice. Duke was getting very disturbed by the declining figures and decided to come back to the lounge alone to open all the bags and do a proper personal stock count. As he unloaded the bags from the freezing room, there was a power outage and Duke couldn’t continue with the count, he had to leave all the bags outside the freezing room and retired to his office to wait till power was restored.
Power was restored 4 hours later, Duke returning to the bags realized, so much water drained from the bags. A supposed 15kg bag of chicken now weighed 6kg, Lode had been receiving Ice block in the bags disguised as white meat from the suppliers. Upon a careful and thorough investigation, it was discovered that the delivery van driver owns a mini factory at another location where he diverts and reworks the bags to remove the meat, replace with ice blocks and seals the bags using the company’s seals and sewing pattern. No, Duke didn’t end up in the hospital and Yes, Lode is still running.
You want to run a business in Nigeria, be ready for anything and everything.
Names have been changed to protect the identities.
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