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Below are a number of inspiring and useful resoirces that would help enrich your business.
Corporate Social Responsibility
We make effort to avail our services to as many entrepreneurs as possible. Every entrepreneur is offered an opportunity to access our expert advice and other resources. The following are our give-back strategies:
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One hour of free consultation every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. This is a free service accessed by all entrepreneurs new and existing in the IRIS network. Entrepreneurs can access any expert in any field in the first hour of the day. Our day starts at 7.30am.
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IRIS sponsored business clinics: IRIS runs a sponsored business clinic. We subsidized this services to attract a maximum of 5 entrepreneurs at a go to help them identify their challenges and opportunities and how to take advantage of them. This has to be arranged to make the group.
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Business promotion on the website: IRIS publishes successful stories and businesses with financial needs yet with potential to grow. These businesses can be reviewed by angel investors and equity investors.
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Staff enterprises: Every member of the IRIS team is encouraged and assisted with technical expertise and other resources to run/develop their own business.
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We author and publish businss knowledge right here on the website and other fora.
HIRING & FIRING: Reducing The Pain of Dismissal
Recently I dismissed a worker. It was not hard.
Mugema was a polite, generally quiet and obedient young man. He spoke one local language very well and English to a reasonable degree. He was what we designate as Location Attendant in our company. As a Location Attendant, one needs good interpersonal qualities. To be bilingual, polite, calm and not quarrelsome, and ready to get up and go whenever sent on one errand or another, responding to the daily small needs of six families, Mugema stood himself in quite good stead and for over two years he steadily worked with us. From the dogs through the toddlers to regular visitors, all the members of the families at his location knew him and trusted him with different tasks, and he earned tips enough to not touch his salary for months. We are actually missing him (and we knew we would).
The 3 Ms
I saw the advert in the daily and called the number immediately; it was a going concern. The voice at the end of the line was firm, gentle and civil. After the salutations I asked; “Why do you want to sell? And, secondly, what is your reserve price?”
We talked for a few minutes at the end of which I felt sure it would be a very good deal, and so my psyche could not quite take why he was selling. I called him back. “Sir, pardon me for asking, but you are not from West Africa, are you?” “No”, he chuckled. “I am from here; only I have lived away for most of the time, but I know what you mean.” He had understood. West Africans had acquired a reputation here for being crafty. They are alleged to print “black dollars”, sell fake stocks on the net, and even announce deaths that have not occurred only to organize dummy funerals for the sake of the funeral collections. That particular last prank is spreading; a popular musician has done a song along those lines, and most people identify with it.
The Cost of Imitations
Imitations can be very costly.
Pat stopped to buy diapers. In a hurry to get home to the children and not break the family rule of nine, she went for a familiar brand, PAMPERS, without comparing prices which she is wont to do by habit.
In the morning, Akim would not stop crying. By nine, he clearly had pain in the waist line and a little pressure to his buttocks and thighs showed he had pain there too for it increased his wails. A little swelling was observed. A doctor was seen, blood smears done – there was no infection, “except for a little increase in white blood cells – which shows a bit of inflammation”; the doctor said, “he does not need medication. He will be okay”. Then he seemed to hesitate. “Does he sleep in diapers?” he asked.
The Need For Formalization - Part 1
The conducting and thriving of business, especially among family and “close friends” is often hampered by not lack of resources, not lack of good ideas, not lack of market or a myriad other things that can indeed go wrong with business, but rather by lack or disregard of attention to detail. Oftentimes people venture into something and invest large sums of money in partnerships, without ever thinking through the details of the intended activity, let alone document them; family and “close friends” tend to be the worst offenders.
Consider the case of Muwonge who argued that Nsamba was his brother and therefore he needn’t sign an agreement with him as they were putting up a building together. Only 3 years later, Muwonge was lamenting: “Nsamba now says he put up most of the money and he wants 2 thirds of the rent money. He forgets the land was mine and land does not rot – I could have built slowly”.
The Need For Formalization - Part 2
In 1993 while I studied at university, I had a job, working on a pig farm. The owner of the farm had a Bluebird. The Bluebird is a car. And that Bluebird was one of the most impressive cars I had come across. It was impressive because every time you opened the door, the car spoke. It said, “Ting! Have you noticed the door is open that side? Ting! Have you noticed the door is open that side?”, or so I heard. And it continued talking till you closed the door. I was awed.
Of course, you have heard cars making all sorts of noises when the car door is opened, to alert you so you would not drive off with a door loose. This particular car awed me because it talked. I put it down to marketing. It was a Bluebird, but a different one in my eyes – it talked.
A Plumbing Connection
The plumber reports to the site where you are building, as agreed. There are no T-junctions and no reducing joints. He had put them on the list of the so many things he specified. You only did not buy them because you thought, well, he could start with all the other so many things you bought and these particular joints and junctions would come over the weekend.
Two days pass: The site supervisor calls to say the plumber has again not come. Again? What do you mean, again? The plumber came the day you delivered the materials and said there were vital things you left out. He said he would come back when you have bought them; I thought he called you!!
Your first reaction is fury. Plumbers! Plumbers! Why is it so hard to get decent plumbers in this town? Why could he not get back to me? He knows all my numbers. What are mobile phones for? He has one.
Waste & Management
We followed the trail from Kasese to a place called Nyakatonzi. There we found the lorry parked by the road side, the bonnet hood up, someone standing on its front bumper bending, peering over its engine. Three other men lounged by. Poorly stitched bales of cotton rose to the sky and hang over the sides. This was years ago, but that trail of cotton on the road is still vivid in my mind.
In the last few weeks I have been driving daily by the new grand Muammar Gaddafi Mosque in Uganda’s Old Kampala. There, by the roadside, thousands of paving blocks meant to lay the walk ways surrounding the mosque, have been heaped and scattered for weeks. Day after day, many have been broken by motorists in a hurry that venture onto the supposed walk way. Many have been pushed onto the road and broken there. And I would not be surprised if “enterprising “ young men walking home daily took a couple of them in their backpacks every evening. Paving blocks cost a lot of money to make/buy. Grains cost the farmer a lot of energy to produce.