FEATURES
MONEY’S TOO TIGHT TO MENTION
Small business owners frequently state that they do
not have enough money or that their cash flow has
disappeared. They are unable to articulate or identify
the problems and can only indicate what turnover the
business is doing.
“P art of the problem is that they frequently equate turnover
to profit. They don’t always fully understand the relationship
between turnover and a debtor’s book,” explains Sanders.
One of the biggest problems with SMMEs is that they tend
to employ family members who do not necessarily have the
required skills.
“We are busy with a client with a turnover in excess of
R300-million per year and the family is involved. That is not
a problem per se, so long as they are contributors. In this
case, the business has grown beyond the capacity of the
family and they are losing financial control. It has become
too big to be managed in the way it was in the past.
“They brought a guy in to be the right-hand man to the
CEO, but he only exacerbated the problem. There are many
other companies who struggle to maintain their growth
trajectories due to family involvement. A lot of people
mistakenly think that family is cheap labour, but it’s actually
quite the opposite,” he cautions.
www.plumbingafrica.co.za
53
HANDS-ON
Frank Crisafulli of Rivers Corporate Plumbing says he is
studying for an MBA because he has come to realise that
every plumber who runs a company must be present all
the time.
“Any small business is normally a family-type business.
Often the father has passed it down to his son or
something to that effect. One cannot get through anything.
One cannot administer any changes and so there is never
any real growth,” he laments.
“Most companies want to grow, and they want to use
some sort of system. Nobody wants to complete the same
handwritten job card every single day. Surely there is a
better way? DHL doesn’t hand write every single delivery
they make. DHL and similarly large companies can
digitalise because they have the money to put the right
people in charge of checking everything,” he says.
Small, micro, or medium enterprises do not have the
infrastructure to pay for a software application or something
similar. “I am busy looking into that to get my guys to
become more efficient and to save time and track vehicles.
We already have that capability to an extent, but there is
still a manual process involved and a person behind it. That
person is normally a plumber or the business owner. I am
moving in the direction of trying to find systems and ways
Continued on page 55>>
April 2018 Volume 24 I Number 2