South African small businesses looking to grow need to pay as much attention to their internal operations as they do to winning new customers, according to technology and transformation consultant Kume Luvhani.
Speaking at the Standard Bank Top Women Conference, Luvhani said businesses could appear to be growing through new clients while still facing financial pressure because of poor cash-flow management, unpaid invoices and weak day-to-day operations.
“You think that if you get the clients, the business grows, but if you don’t take care of daily operations, cash flow and all those kinds of things, it can really tip the business,” she said.
Luvhani said entrepreneurs could find themselves spending too much time chasing outstanding invoices and managing administrative processes, leaving them without enough cash to sustain the growth they had achieved.
For small businesses, she said, growth therefore needs to be supported by systems that allow entrepreneurs to manage customers, finances and operations effectively.
Technology should solve a business problem
Luvhani said technology can help small businesses improve their operations, but entrepreneurs should first identify what they need to fix rather than investing in systems simply because other businesses are using them.
“I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all. I think every business needs to look at what they want to improve first of all,” she said.
This could include improving cash flow, understanding customers or gaining better insights from business data.
“Technology should be there to enable you,” Luvhani said, warning entrepreneurs against adopting technology simply because another business has done so.
She said businesses should also test technology before committing to long-term contracts, recommending free trials and month-to-month subscriptions where possible.
For her own business, one of the important investments has been a customer relationship management system, which allows staff to keep track of customer interactions instead of relying solely on conversations taking place through WhatsApp.
The approach, she said, ensures that different members of a team can access the same customer information and continue conversations without repeatedly asking clients for information.
Digital visibility matters
Luvhani also highlighted the importance of having a professional online presence as businesses compete for customers.
She said websites and social media profiles can serve as the first point of contact between a business and a potential customer, particularly when people search for a company before making contact.
“If I Google a business and I don’t find it, or I don’t find a website, I start like, is it legit or is it a scam?” she said.
A website should provide customers with relevant information about the business and an easy way to make contact, she said.
“It speaks for you before you can speak for yourself,” Luvhani said, describing a business’s digital presence as an “unpaid marketer”.
As businesses grow, however, technology is not the only challenge. Luvhani said hiring and managing people had also been among the difficulties her business had faced.
“People are the most dynamic force you can ever have, and I don’t think there’s a formula for that,” she said.
She said hiring through referrals had helped the business find people who had already been vetted through previous working relationships, while mismatches in work ethic and company culture remained a challenge.
Her business now has just under 100 employees, with managers overseeing different divisions.
For young women looking to build businesses, Luvhani said the goal should not be to replicate another successful entrepreneur.
“They mustn’t aim to be the next Kumi. They must aim to be the next of themselves,” she said. “The sky’s the limit. For me, it’s don’t limit yourself.”
