Come Over To Infoplaze.com

Hii. 🙂 Thanks for your support and encouragement, expressed by your visits, likes, comments and follows.

However, in view of the fact that I am still getting blog and email followers after my last post, where I announced my movement to a self-hosted WordPress blog @ www.infoplaze.com, I decided to do this post.

In this regards, I want to really thank you for the follow and visit[s] and would like to inform you [again] that I now blog at www.infoplaze.com. That means that you won’t get new posts here. So, I am passionately begging you for your continued support by way of your very encouraging followership, visits, likes and comments at my new blog.

If you liked this blog, you will certainly fall in love with www.infoplaze.com as it contains more of whatever made you like this blog 🙂

Once more, thanks a lot for your encouragement.

God bless you 🙂

Check out my new WordPress blog @ www.infoplaze.com

Hii. Its been a while. It feels good to connect with you again 🙂 I have been working on my new wordpress blog; and it feels really feels good that it finally cruised into the blogosphere late last month. This brings to a halt, further postings to businessplaze.wordpress.com. How sad, but with time, you will love my new blog more 🙂

 

http://www.infoplaze.com, content-wise, promises to be better, more informative, educating and inspiring. Since it is a self-hosted site, I am working hard to make sure it lives up to its name…INFOPLAZE.

 

 So I humbly urge you to follow my blog or subscribe to my posts by email @ http://www.infoplaze.com and let us continue from where we left off.

Thanks a lot and see you there 🙂

 

 

Is There A Business Organisation That Cannot Collapse?

The internet is awash with news about the sale of the handset business of Nokia to Microsoft and the continued struggle of Blackberry to stay afloat. What is however not awash on the internet is a very funny thing a friend of mine said a while ago, about a very big bank in Nigeria. He said the bank can never collapse 🙂  This was very funny to me as companies much more bigger and stronger than the bank in question, with world class CEOs, have gone with the sands of time.

I was one of those who were not surprised when the problems of Nokia and Blackberry became public. Why? Experience has shown that today’s business environment is no respecter of persons or businesses organisations. It has become so complex and fast-paced that the skills, education and experience of CEOs are becoming obsolete with the passage of time. So much that a company soon discovers that the CEO it hired has suddenly become incapable to handle a business problem that showed its face after being hired. In fact, having a 100-paged CV and tens of years of diverse experience is no more a 100% guarantee that a CEO will be a “superstar.” If my assertion is faulty, Nokia and Blackberry would not have the problems they have today.

The situation would therefore will be worse for a business that hires a CEO that does not know the rudiments and dynamics of business management or who does not appreciate the fact that mediocrity in business management of today has quicker consequences than it used to be.  I have read countless write- ups on these two companies. Their stories are just like those I have read about former blue chips that swam into troubled waters – rosy for a period of time, comfort from success seemingly beclouds realty, organsational and environmental factors start affecting it negatively, efforts are made to salvage it, the efforts fail and then the company begins a journey to the unknown, either abruptly or gradually.

One big lesson I learnt from the bank audit carried out in Nigeria some years ago was that the public image portrayed by businesses, especially the architectural master pieces that characterized some of the office buildings were actually make beliefs – more like seeing someone with a trendy outlook and quickly drawing conclusions about the person’s personality. Now I know that indeed, sound business management is much more complex than glamour, because beneath those beautiful imagery might be a badly managed business or a business going through serious pains from competition, and is heading towards the brink.

What is my ideal CEO of today’s extremely complex business environment? I will address three qualities. The seeming greatest flaw of today’s CEO would be to ignore the fact that competitors do not have a heart of mercy. It seems to me that the greatest challenge of businesses today is COMPETITION MANAGEMENT. Take competition away and a lot of dying businesses will bounce back to life. But you and I know that isn’t gonna happen 🙂 Competition is an unavoidable and cannot be pushed aside. Ability to manage competition is a huge asset for today’s CEOs. I follow the school of thought that say that competition is Nokia and Blackberry’s major “headache.” I really enjoy the competition in the smartphones and tablets market. To me, it is a test of CEOs 🙂 In years to come, I foresee an upset in the smartphones/tablets market, especially with the current trend of competition. today you can get very good Chinese smartphones/tablets that run Android operating systems at very cheap prices, cpmpared to to the big names. Any business that does not see competitors, no matter how small, as threats is obviously “digging its own grave!!!”  Any business that sits back to only counter an “offensive” is certainly begging for trouble.

Secondly, today’s CEOs need to be extremely dynamic, just as the market place is. The market place has become so unpredictable. Foresight and ability to predict market trends have become priceless jewels. Mistakes could be very disastrous. To say that CEOs should sleep with one eye open would not be a joke 🙂 CEOs cannot afford to engage in arm-chair management anymore. Change now takes place on per second basis. Just when one CEO thinks he has taken a huge step for his company, he later discovers that another CEO has dwarfed it. Dynamism is no more a prerequisite for a CEO, is now extremely indispensable.

Finally, creativity and innovativeness are twin traits which today’s CEO must possess. Anyone who does the same thing all the time is most like to get the same result all the time. Creativity is a major tool that can used to abate the heat of competition. Thus, they should be able to think out new ideas, approaches, products at very regular intervals. A CEO’s imaginative ability should be excellent. It should not be business “as usual.”

In  my humble opinion, where a CEO lacks these qualities, then the business they oversee is(are) not in safe hands.

Conclusively, I leave you with my parting shot : Is There A Business Organisation That Cannot Collapse?

 

Thanks a lot for allowing me share my thoughts with you. I hope this piece has added to your wealth of knowledge. Please tell someone if it did.

Thanks for your time 🙂

Related posts:

Outsmart your competitors or they will kick you out of business

Decision making:The sensitive and far-reaching function of a manager

Between nepotism and merit in staff selection

Customer loyalty:A condition for business survival

 

What Is The Cheapest Means Of Advertising?

Last week a friend complained to me about her generator and how the technician who had been handling its maintenance had been cheating her. I wasted no time in recommending the technician who had been maintaining my generator for years. I told her of two reasons why he is extremely recommendable and seemingly, my only choice.

Firstly, the guy is extremely sincere. He would never tell you lies about faults detected or give you outrageous prices of the spare parts that he needs to replace. Hence, I hardly beat down his service charge. Secondly, he was extremely good at his job. He hardly gambles. So, it boiled down to the fact that he was my choice because of his rare PERSONALITY. Rare, because greed and make-belief have taken over the world of business. What are common are people who are so eager to make ungodly money at the expense of unsuspecting customers and people who promise you what they cannot deliver. As expected, he lived up to my advert at the lady’s home. So, from maintaining my generator, we have become very good friends 🙂

And so, without hand bills, TV, radio and newspaper adverts, banners and bill boards, my friend has been getting free adverts from his lucky customers, especially me. Nearly all my neighbors now use him, and gladly, they have discovered that my adverts were not make-beliefs. So, they too have joined the advert train for my friend….all free of charge 🙂 Okay, you might get a bottle of drink sometimes for the advert 🙂 But that it is really a cheap means of advertisement.

So, are you in business? ?Why don’t you consider this very cheap means of advertisement. I’ts very effective.

Thanks for your time.

The Place Of STAFF MOTIVATION In Business

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My first major stint at managing people was at the “tender” age of 26. This was the first major job I got after my national service. Interestingly, all the major staffers were older than I was. By my position, I was next to the CEO. In all, we were about thirty or thereabout. The driver assigned to my office as the Manager, Admin/Accounts, was old enough to be my granddad. So, I had a dilemma – how do I make these people work, because they were practically not ready to be ordered around by a “small boy!” This, they used both words and action to tell me. How do I conquer my age “disadvantage” and prove to my boss that the Federal Government of Nigeria Scholarship I won back in school for emerging tops in my department (Business Administration and management), and for which my boss was so impressed about, was not a fluke. One thing was certain – I was faced with a practical business management challenge, common with many managers – and that was motivating my subordinates to work, against all odds!

Staff motivation is one of the major functions of a manager. It could be very challenging and dangerous for a business where a manager(s) does not know what motivation means; or does not know the difference between ‘force” and motivation; or at what point a worker needs to be motivated; or what approach to adopt to suite each worker.

In my characteristic manner, I will make it as simple as possible. Simply put, motivation is the act of giving somebody a reason or incentive to do something desired. In business sense, it involves doing things that will make a worker to work. It involves making a worker do what you want him to do, even when it is against his wish. It involves making a disgruntled worker to work.

The question is – what makes workers to work? There is no generally acceptable answer to this question as what motivates a worker might not motivate another. Douglass McGregor, Abraham Maslow, Elton Mayo, Fredrick Taylor, Frederick Herzsberg and other experts in the field of human capital management, carried out studies, years back, into this very crucial function of a manager – all attempting to find out what really motivates a worker and what does not. I will not bore you with the details. I have however provided links for further reading. But it suffices to say that their work ended up with varied results, thus showing that staff motivation is indeed a complex function of a manager.

As a Business Management student I carried out a number of research work on motivation as part of my course. My finding was that the best approach to motivation was what I call the Michael Monday’s DISCOVERY APPROACH TO MOTIVATION. This was the magic wand I used (and still use) and it really worked (and has been working) for me. It involves finding out what really makes a worker to work. Is it money? Promotion? Giving a staff responsibility? Conducive working environment? Welfare packages? Care and concern? Praises? Showing respect to subordinates? Or the use of force/threats? The list continues….The use of force/threats have been found to be the most counterproductive. It has been found to breed unhappy, unfriendly, aggressive, criminally-minded and eye-service workers, who only work when they see you.

You might ask: what happens where the number of workers is enormous? Simple!  Make use of other managers down the line. This is where regular meetings become handy. That is what I did. It is usually counterproductive to assume that a method that worked on one staff or in another organisation will work for a particular staff or your organisation. Time is also of the essence in motivation. This is the main reason why some motivational efforts have failed!  Eventually, the worker[s] is fired for his/her poor attitude to work! The fact is that the in-coming staff will come with his/her own traits, different from the erstwhile staff. Where the same mistake/assumption is made, the cycle repeats itself. In this process, a number of organisations have lost key staffers who were simply not properly motivated to work.

An indisputable fact is that a manager’s success or failure is mainly judged by what he is able to achieve…usually through his subordinates. If you agree, then it means that motivation is a very vital function of a manager or business owner.

So, are you a manager or an entrepreneur with people working under you? Do you know that EVERY successful business today, has well motivated staffers as one of its secrets? Do you know what motivates your workers to excel at work? Can you say you have been motivating them properly? 

Wishing you loads of best wishes in your business management.

Thanks for your time.

Related posts:

Take good care of your employees…

“I must be rich, no matter the means !!!”

If you have crawled through all the corners of my blog @ http://justmikemon.wordpress.com/ you are bound to say “here he goes again.” That is because I am about to talk about my wonderful late parents again 🙂

I learnt a lot from my late parents. One of the greatest things they FORCED into our brains was that “peace of mind was a priceless jewel which very many rich people did not have.” So, we must do everything possible to ensure that we (his children) did not allow anything to take it away from us. As good role models, they led by example. My dad once told us that he had opportunities to steal from his employers and become rich, but he chose his peace of mind and fear of God. Luckily for him, my mum was equally on the same page. Perhaps, just perhaps, if she was not, she would have convinced my dad to “hit the fast lane of life” and bring wealth to the family, with total disregard for the consequences.

Today, to many people globally, the short story i just told you would have been likened to one of those gospel videos where you are taught the virtues of patience, hard work, fear of God and imbibing the commandment of God that says “thou shall not covet….” To such people, it’s outright rubbish and foolishness to run away from money, no matter what the circumstance or consequences, which may include, imprisonment, loss of job, public disgrace and even death !!! The trend today is “I must be rich, no matter the means !!!”

With this mentality, globally, there is a complete disregard for proper reasoning. The craze for money is monumental. People are willing and ready to take the risk and do ANYTHING, and I mean anything to get rich, including to KILL !!! Ritual killers are everywhere seeking for who they use for money rituals, robbers are ready to take the life of their victims who are not willing to cooperate or do not have anything to offer. What about cyber-crime ?  The sophistication is increasing every day. A number of people and organisations have lost so much to cyber-criminals. Offices, public institutions and even churches are not spared – all in the name of “I must be rich, no matter the means !!!”

The level of desperation is suffocating. Age or gender is no barrier. The younger ones are even smarter. Conscience, peace of mind and fear of God makes no sense here. What makes sense is to live large even if it means ruining someone’s life time investment; even if it means putting people into sorrow or even if it means sending someone or people to their untimely graves.

Things are really in a bad shape. The spreading slogan seems to be “Get rich or die tryin.” But it can be checked….to some extent.  I am a strong advocate of “a child is a reflection of his/her family and immediate community.” Let’s start from there. It’s a huge task. But I am also a very strong advocate of “keep on trying and keep hope alive.” One individual withdrawn from that “fast lane of life” will go a very long way. Don’t you think so?

There are decent and respectable means of making money these days….I mean good money. It involves having the right kind of friends who will bring productive and society-friendly ideas. It involves searching for information about opportunities. It involves someone showing concern and care for his fellow human beings. It involves someone showing concern for the society and the masses. It involves having the fear of God. It also requires a strong resolve to work hard spiced up with determination and prayers. The government, business organisations and you and I…yes I mean you…..have different roles to play. It is advisory we act now. Why? Because what goes around, comes around.

Food for thought :  “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there; and that her guests are in the depths of hell.” (Prov 9:17)

Thanks for your time and God bless us all.

Outsmart your competitors or they will kick you out of business

Oshodi market is a very popular market in Lagos, Nigeria. There, you can find almost everything to buy. Like every other market, there are many people selling similar items. What this translates to is that survival is for the fittest.

A few days back, I had to go and do last minute shopping for my family for the Christmas celebration. The tempo in the market was unsurprisingly high as there were so many other last minute shoppers like myself. The traders too were at their best trying to outsmart one another to sell their products. traders used all sort of means to get customers’ attention – pulling customers, singing, cracking jokes, impromptu discounts offers and even making a mockery of themselves – all in a bid to sell their products. One thing was noticeable – traders who were very good at appealing to or wooing customers made a lot of sales. I had to stop by some trading spots, not because I wanted to, but because I was persuaded to by the very appealing tactics applied by the concerned traders. I was not the only one that so persuaded.

However, in a sharp contrast was a particular trader who simply stood there and held out his wares without making attempts to appeal to or woo customers to his spot. Instead, he stood there smiling at his colleagues who were busy applying creativity to the tensed competition that existed at the time, and making huge sales therefrom. Till I left he did not make any sales. I really pitied him.

This scene applies beyond the simple sole trader selling his wares on a corner of the street or in the market, to big multinationals. The need to do something extra cannot be over emphasized in business. One of the major reasons why some businesses are finding the business climate very tough is because of the presence of competitors, some of them being very aggressive. Remove the competition and you find them doing better.  But in business you cannot rule out competition, except for legal monopolies. So every business has to learn the art of survival of the fittest, or they are kicked out of business.

All that is required is to have at the back of your mind that a sale by a competitor means you have lost that particular sale. If it continues unabated, then collapse is imminent. Simple !

So you have to do everything (legal of course) to ensure that you outsmart your competitor. It’s all about being watchful, creative, proactive, business-minded, building customer loyalty and above all, being customer-oriented. Sometimes you might have to lose a few coins/notes. See those loses as investments that, most often than not, pay back.

Last line : Watch a boxing match, preferably that of Iron Mike Tyson, and see how to outsmart a competitor.

Good luck to you.

Take Good Care Of Your Employees…

Image source:Ambro/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As a Business Management specialist, I have had to do series of study on business resources and secrets of business success. In all my studies and work, I have always come to the knowledge that the most important of business resources and the major secret of business success is not the sophisticated technology in place, the strong connections, the amount of financial power of the business owner or what have you. Rather that every business success or failure, hinges on the human resources available at his disposal.

A friend once said that the reason one of the banks here in Nigeria was doing well more than the others was because of the sophisticated technology it had put in place, especially in the area of internet banking. I said No ! I do not agree. To start with, those equipment were suggested by the staffers of the bank. It takes the staffers to make the machines operational. It also takes the staffers to tackle problems when they occur. Without humans the machines will forever be what they are – machines !!!

In all sectors of the economy workers are not treated as the goose that lays the golden eggs. What you have is mass exploitation of workers and in some cases, a complete disregard for generally acceptable standards for human treatment. Ranging from high rate of retrenchment/dismissals to inhuman treatments to unreasonable working hours to working-365 days a year to zero-welfare schemes, and very unreasonable salaries. The golden goose has been turned to the one that only lays the golden egg and it ends there ! Should it be so?

In such  organisations, there is very low morale, low productivity, high tendency to cheat or defraud the organisation, very low dedication and loyalty from employees, constant grumbling and dissatisfaction, very low tendency to be creative and very high staff turnover.

However, thumbs up for those organisations that see and treat their workers as truly the geese that lay the golden eggs and therefore have to be well nurtured for better production. These organisations are noted for excellent welfare policies (all of these or most of it) – free meals, all-expense-paid holiday trips, free accommodation, staff bus services, subsidized acquisition of home appliances, bonuses, excellent health services, scholarship for children of employees, humane treatment of emloyees, excellent award/reward system and salaries that makes vacancies to be very scarce in such organisations, amongst others.

Such organisations have very high staff loyalty, highly motivated work force, high productivity, creativity, dedication to service by employees and very low or insignificant staff turnover. Except for very strong reasons, why would one want to leave such organisations ?

I am one of those who see staff welfare expenses as investments, because that is exactly what it is. This is always an investment that always yields good returns. If you want to find out the results of having or not having a good welfare policy in place in an organisation, check out those organisations that either have them or do not have them in place. The results are so easy to see.

Thanks for your time.

Tips On Safe Usage Of The Automated Teller Machine (ATM)

An automated teller machine or automatic teller machine (ATM) , also known as an automated banking machine (ABM), Cashpoint, cash machine or sometimes a hole in the wall in British English and Hiberno-English, is a computerised telecommunications device that provides the client of a financial institution with access to financial transactions in a public space without the need for a cashier, human clerk or bank teller.

The customer is identified by inserting a plastic ATM card with a magnetic stripe or a plastic smart card with a chip that contains a unique card number and some security information such as an expiration date.

The first ATM was put into use in 1959 in the Kingsdale Shopping Center in Upper Arlington, Ohio.

The ATM machine is a modern day invention that has been globally applauded, accepted and used. However, like every other very good invention, it has not been without its own setbacks.

I have been a victim of this machine a number of times. Same goes for my friends. Hence, I decided to do this post.

Setbacks

The major setbacks are basically of three types:

Fraud. There have been so many reported cases of ATM card’s password forgeries.  Fraudsters have devised a means of getting and using the ATM card users’ password to steal money from their bank accounts. This they do without the cards.  One low-tech way is shoulder surfing (i.e. looking over someone’s shoulder, to get information) your card’s personal identification number (PIN) or password by a criminal. Another way is to steal both the card and the PIN and use it withdraw money from the account.

Seizure of cards. So many ATM machines have ‘swallowed’ the cards of some users due to, in some cases, technical defaults. This usually causes untold hardship for the account owner who has to spend days, weeks and sometimes months waiting for a solution to the fraud.  It can even take a longer time where is an inter bank problem.

Debits without payments. I have fallen a victim of this setback, say thrice. Fortunately for me, I was credited within one hour of the occurrence of the problem. Some people spend months pursuing this error. An account holder in one of the banks said for three months he was yet to get his account credited.

Tips on safe usage

Here are a few tips which I have been sharing with people to reduce the risk involved with the usage of the ATM :-

1.  Insist that no one is within a distance that can make the person see your PIN when typing.

2. Where you suspect that your PIN has been seen, change it immediately, either using the machine you are using or use the nearest machine.

3.  Where the machine seizes your card, report immediately to an officer in the bank who can act fast. Where they are slow on retrieving your card, I will advise you authorize you bank to stop your account until you are convinced that all is well. As soon as you get your card change the PIN immediately.

4. To collect money, follow the following steps:

i. Check the balance first to confirm that your banks’ network is connected to the ATM’s internet service.

ii. Start with a small amount. This reduces the risk of being debited with a huge sum without payment, as a result of either the machine not being able to dispense cash or that there is no enough cash in the machine.

5.  Keep your password very close to your heart. Where you have to inevitably release your PIN to someone, change it immediately after collecting it back.

6.  Do not be careless with your card.

7.  Where a particular machine is notorious for ATM-related problems, avoid it.

8.  From experience, it is advisable to always use the ATMs of the banks where your account is located. Apart from  not paying a fee of N100(as it applies in Nigeria) it reduces the stress you may have to go through if there is any problem; and also it reduces the time you may have to wait to get the problem sorted out.

9. Where the transaction’s processing is slow, it is advisable that you discontinue the usage of the machine, if your card is not seized by the machine. Cases abound of card seizures after a prolonged waiting for the transaction to be processed.

10. If you have forgotten your password, contact your bank. Your card may be seized by the machine after three failed attempts.

It costs nothing to take good advice.

Thanks for your time.

Decision Making : The Most Sensitive And Far-Reaching Function Of A Manager

Image source:ambro/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

As a student of Business Administration and Management, I had had to do a project on the most sensitive and far-reaching function of a Manager. Then, I had thought that providing good leadership was the most challenging, as every organisation was made up of all sorts of people- permit me to say , the good, the bad and the ugly – which makes leadership very complicated and in some cases, very frustrating.

Much later, the following questions stared me in the face: What could make a very successful business go down the drain like a small road side one-man business? What could make a business that falls within the first five in the world collapse like a pack of cards? What could make the CEO of a company which used to be of a house hold name, suddenly become a reference point for business failure? What could make a world class business with the best of the best world class hands collapse like a business with a Board made up of a bunch of illiterates?

A critical look at the collapse of ENRON, which used to be one of the foremost energy companies in the world and their auditors, revealed one thing – these businesses collapsed because of the wrong decisions taken by some persons. One fact is indisputable – if the right decisions were taken, the damage done to the image of these businesses would not have taken place.

My graduation from school and years of working has further buttressed what I have now discovered – that decision making is actually the most sensitive and far-reaching of all the functions of a manager.

2009 provided me with further evidence of my conviction of how far-reaching decision making can be. This was the year the current Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido ordered an audit of banks in Nigeria. The result was very ‘’interesting.’’ It was because some of the banks that failed the CBN audit were actually banks which I (and I am sure most Nigerians too had) had a l lot of respect for, as well as their CEOs. Today, some of  those banks have either been taken over by government or ‘’swallowed’’ by other banks – all because WRONG DECISIONS, like in the case of Enron and Arthur Andersen, were taken.  by some  managers.

There are so many businesses out there that have suffered or are suffering similar fate. There are some that are have not closed down, but are  going through harsh times or stagnated progress simply because the managers do not know the A-B-C of decision making and have therefore taken wrong decisions in the business.

For a business owner, the worst decision is to employ managers who will continue with the trend of wrong decisions. Managers who take decisions before thinking. Managers who do not know the difference between a plan and a decision. Managers who give priority to self-fulfillment rather than business interests. Managers who lack foresight and cannot decipher the immediate consequences of their decisions, how much more the long term consequences. Managers who take decisions like complete illiterates. Managers who live and work in the past and are guided by the past, in a fast moving world.

Show me a very successful business and I will dig up a catalogue of beautiful decisions they took. Show me a stagnant, troubled or collapsing business and I will dig up many terrible, misguided, not-well-thought-out and destructive decisions that they took.

My last line ? For every business (irrespective of the size) failure is traceable to a decision(s). Equally true, is that every business success is traceable to a decision(s).

Read between the lines.