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For sometime now, I have been concerned about small and medium scale businesses/enterprises in my country. Let me give you an example. When I was a child there was this small business opposite my home where they made artifacts. Till today (20 years and more), this business is still opposite my house, they produce the same number of artifacts per day, they use the same equipments they used 20 years ago, and they sell to the same market. Now this is SERIOUSLY SERIOUS. Will they ever grow? So one day I walked across to have a chat with them and this is what I found out.
Firstly all the workers there are illiterates so they lack the necessary business skills required to grow a business. For this reason they fail to recognize the importance of upgrading their equipments so that they will manufacture more artifacts at a faster rate and sell more. The owner of the business said to me “I don’t know any other market” when I asked him if he had attempted to sell his products to more people than the common customers.
Because of the rich culture of African economies, these small and medium scale businesses have a lot of potential to grow, expand their markets and create employment. But there is a problem, where is the problem from? and who should solve it. Sometimes I hear members of the government saying to the small businesses that they should improve upon their performance so that they can create jobs for themselves and make a living. But this does not sound right since the owners of the small businesses are mostly illiterates and lack business minds to run businesses. It is not their fault that they remain where they are. Transport costs are excessively high in Africa and so export markets are not attractive. Theses small businesses do not know stuff like ergonomics and anthropometrics and also fail to manufacture products to suit customer preferences. Because of this their products are always beaten by imported ones.
These people need to be helped. We cannot simply tell them to improve and expect them to know what to do. They need to be taught about making their products to suit the customer’s preferences. They need to be taught how to plough back profits to expand their businesses. They need to be helped in terms of locating other markets for their products. We cannot expect illiterates to know all this.
