Over the past few years, I have come to appreciate the amount of complexity involved in running a business but from an unusual perspective – as a parent with kids in school.
Going back just 10 years, most of the communication I received from my kids school was about projects and sports. We were rarely called to the school except to attend parent-teacher meetings or sports events. However, in the past few years there’s been a significant change in the content of communication coming from school.
Whether it was updates about heightened security measures & new infrastructure; meetings about online safety and the risk of AI; the need for back-up power supply to mitigate loadshedding; requests to authorise the storage of parent’s contact details (required under the POPI Act); or requests to join the Finance Committee or Marketing Committee, I slowly began to appreciate that our beloved school leaders were no longer just educators entrusted to nurture the next generation of adults…they are wittingly or not, full-on business managers & administrators seized with the same challenges we typically associate with C-suite managers of large companies.
Faced with challenging economic realities, many people have set up their own businesses driven by a desire to beat their own path, pursue a passion on a fulltime basis or stave off the effects of retrenchment. But many have found themselves unprepared for the volume and complexity of managerial and administrative tasks involved. So too I imagine with teachers. Keeping up with those pesky annual company returns; registering staff with the Compensation Fund; dealing with an unrelenting avalanche of risks that seems to emerge every week and threaten the sustainability of your business; or dealing with new customer expectations in the age of ESG!! It’s enough to scream “THIS IS NOT WHAT I SIGNED UP FOR!”
In reality, today’s business environment was designed with those big corporates in mind. To run and grow a business today you need armies of administrators, bookkeepers, accountants, risk managers, HR professionals to name a few. Even though we are repeatedly told that small and medium sized businesses are the engines of growth that engine quickly gets clogged with non-core tasks.
If this sounds familiar, you aren’t alone. You probably know that you need help but aren’t sure that you can afford it. But what’s the opportunity cost of doing it yourself? At best it means taking valuable time out from growing your brand, at worst facing penalties for non-compliance. Well, help is at hand. We have developed an affordable, comprehensive Corporate Package designed specifically for owner-managed and unlisted businesses to free you to focus on building your core business. To find out more please reach out to me at:
Email: lindiwe.gadd@all5co.com
Website: https://all5co.com